8 suspected terrorists killed after U.S. raid

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. forces sealed off a house in the northern city of Mosul where eight suspected al-Qaida members died in a gunfight -- some by their own hand to avoid capture. A U.S. official said Sunday that efforts were under way to determine if terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was among the dead.\nIn Washington, a U.S. official said the identities of the terror suspects killed in the Saturday raid was unknown. Asked if they could include al-Zarqawi, the official replied: "There are efforts under way to determine if he was killed."\nThe official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.\nOn Saturday, police Brig. Gen. Said Ahmed al-Jubouri said the raid was launched after a tip that top al-Qaida operatives, possibly including al-Zarqawi, were in the house in the northeastern part of the city.\nDuring the intense gunbattle that followed, three insurgents detonated explosives and killed themselves to avoid capture. Eleven Americans were wounded, the U.S. military said. Such intense resistance often suggests an attempt to defend a high-value target. American soldiers controlled the site Sunday, and residents said helicopters flew over the area throughout the day. Some residents said the tight security was reminiscent of the July 2003 operation in which Saddam Hussein's sons, Odai and Qusai, were killed in Mosul.\nThe elusive al-Zarqawi has narrowly escaped capture in the past. U.S. forces said they nearly caught him in a February 2005 raid that recovered his computer.\nIn May, the group said he was wounded in fighting and was taken out of the country for treatment. Within days, it reported he had returned -- though there was never any independent confirmation that he was wounded. \nThe U.S. soldier killed Sunday near the capital was assigned to the Army's Task Force Baghdad and was hit by small arms fire, the military said. The Marine, assigned to Regimental Combat Team 8, 2nd Marine Division, died of wounds suffered the day before in Karmah, a village outside Fallujah to the west of the capital.\nIn the southern city of Basra, a roadside bomb killed a British soldier and wounded four others, the British Ministry of Defense said. \nThe U.S. military also said Sunday that 24 people -- including another Marine and 15 civilians -- were killed the day before in an ambush on a joint U.S. Iraqi patrol in Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad in the volatile Euphrates River valley.\nAccording to the U.S. statement, the attack began Saturday with a roadside bomb detonating next to the Marine's vehicle, followed by a heavy volley of fire from insurgents.\n"Iraqi army soldiers and Marines returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding another," the statement said.\nThe three American deaths brought the number of U.S. military deaths to at least 2,093 since the beginning of the war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.