A US helicopter fired on a wedding party in Iraq yesterday and killed more than 40 people, Iraqi officials said.

The US military said it could not confirm the report but was investigating.

Lieutenant Colonel Ziyad al-Jbouri, deputy police chief of Ramadi, said between 42 and 45 people were killed in the attack, near the border with Syria and Jordan.

He said the dead included 15 children and ten women.

Dr Salah al-Ani, who works at a hospital in Ramadi, put the death toll at 45.

Associated Press Television News obtained videotape showing a truck containing the bodies of people allegedly killed in the incident. Most were wrapped in blankets and other cloths, but the footage showed at least eight uncovered, bloody bodies, several of them children. One of the children was headless.

Iraqis interviewed on the videotape said partygoers were firing in the air in a traditional wedding celebration. US troops have sometimes mistaken celebratory gunfire for hostile fire.

* A US soldier was jailed for the maximum one year yesterday after the first court martial arising from the torture of Iraqi prisoners in Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib jail.

Specialist Jeremy Sivits was also reduced in rank and will get a bad conduct discharge. He is expected to give evidence against other accused soldiers.