Baghdad  - Air raids by the multinational forces in Iraq targeted houses in the southern city of Basra Wednesday, killing at least four civilians and wounding another three, witnesses said.

The witnesses told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that multinational force helicopters raided houses in Basra's Hayaniya district. The air raids killed four civilians and injured another four.

In the late hours of Tuesday, Iraqi forces and militants from the Mahdi Army, which is loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, clashed intensively in the same district, witnesses told dpa.

Meanwhile, al-Jazeera news channel reported that Turkish air raids hit militants from the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq Wednesday. (dpa)