(MENAFN) A US airstrike has killed eight Iraqis on Saturday, most of them security personnel. The strike apparently targeted their group by mistake west of Anbar, a provincial official said.

"Eight people - a senior intelligence official, five policemen and a woman - were killed by a US strike on the center of Al-Baghdadi," a town in western Iraq, the official said to Al-sharq Alawsat as quoted, asking not to be identified.

The fatalities were traveling in a convoy which had been positioned to support an operation against suspected ISIS militants in the area.

Wounding 20 people, the strike ruined most of the vehicles in the convoy; among the injured was the town's police chief, who was in a serious condition, the provincial official said.

The convoy had pick-up trucks and the returning forces mistook them for militants and called in a coalition air strike, the Joint Operations Command said.

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