US aircraft struck at the rebel Iraqi stronghold of Fallujah for a third time in 24 hours, targeting a meeting of suspected militants loyal to Jordanian mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Last night's strike was aimed at about 10 militants meeting in the city centre to plan operations, the US military said. Eight people were killed and 17 wounded.
It was the third US-described "precision strike" in 24 hours, raising to 15 the number of people killed and the number of wounded to 30, among them women and children, doctors said.
Fallujah is home to some of Iraq's most hardened Sunni Muslim militants and has become a focal point of the anti-American insurgency.
Zarqawi's group, known as Tawhid and Jihad, has claimed responsibility for kidnapping and beheading foreigners and for car bombings and other attacks in Iraq over the past year.
The US military believes Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born militant who is Washington's number one enemy in Iraq, with a $25 million reward offered for his death or capture, is holed up in Fallujah and coordinating activities from there.
His group seized two Americans and a Briton from their home in Baghdad 10 days ago and threatened to kill them unless women prisoners were released from Iraqi jails.
The two Americans - Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley - have been killed, with videos of their bloody executions posted on the Internet, and Briton Mr Kenneth Bigley is threatened also with death, although no deadline has been set.
Meanwhile the US military said a soldier based near Tikrit, in northern Iraq, had been sentenced to 25 years in prison for the murder in May this year of a member of the Iraqi National Guard.
It said Specialist Federico Merida pleaded guilty to murder and making false statements during his court martial. Merida was also dishonourably discharged and reduced in rank to private.
In a separate case last week, the US military said two soldiers in Baghdad had been charged with premeditated murder in the wrongful deaths of three Iraqis, the latest of many charges brought against US soldiers in Iraq.
Earlier today, one person was killed and several others wounded when a rocket landed in a busy shopping street in Baghdad's city centre.