Washington, September 20: A team of UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) geographers has uncovered fresh evidence from satellite imagery that last year''s U. S. troop surge in Iraq may not have been as effective at improving security as some U. S. officials have maintained.

The effectiveness of the February 2007 deployment of 30,000 additional U. S. troops has been a subject of debate.

In a report to Congress in September of that year, General David Petraeus claimed that "the military objectives of the surge are, in large measure, being met."

Washington, September 20: A team of UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) geographers has uncovered fresh evidence from satellite imagery that last year''s U. S. troop surge in Iraq may not have been as effective at improving security as some U. S. officials have maintained.

The effectiveness of the February 2007 deployment of 30,000 additional U. S. troops has been a subject of debate.

In a report to Congress in September of that year, General David Petraeus claimed that "the military objectives of the surge are, in large measure, being met."

Baghdad - US forces killed a family of nine, including two children, in a helicopter bombing on their house in the northern Salahaddin province on Friday, witnesses told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Two children and three women were among the victims when the Ali Taema household in the al-Dor district, 170 kilometres north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad was hit.

In a separate incident, unknown gunmen shot dead a man and his wife and injured another four members of the same family including a child in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency reported.

Damascus  - Hundreds of Iraqi refugees in Syria will return home on October 4 in the latest of a series of repatriations as violence declines in Iraq, an Iraqi embassy source said Thursday.

Iraq's government, which will fund the trip, has encouraged Iraqis who fled after the US-led invasion to return. It is funding air tickets and giving each refugee 500 US dollars, the source said.

Hundreds of Iraqi refugees already left Syria by land a couple of months ago. October's repatriation will be the first by air, the source said.

Baghdad - Nine US soldiers were killed when their helicopter crashed west of the southern Iraqi city of Basra, the US army said Thursday.

Baghdad - Eleven people were reported killed Wednesday in violence in central and northern Iraq, with the largest number killed in a double car bombing in western Baghdad, police said.

Eight died and 25 were injured when two cars loaded with explosives detonated in front of a hospital in the Iraqi capital's al-Harithya neighbourhood, Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency reported.

Earlier, on the outskirts of Kirkuk, unidentified gunmen fired on a civilian vehicle killing three Iraqis, police said.