US soldiers were forced to fire on a van approaching a checkpoint near Najaf, when the driver refused to stop even after several warning shots. Regrettably, 7 Iraqi women and children were killed.

WASHINGTON - U.S. troops killed seven Iraqi women and children at a checkpoint Monday when the Iraqis’ van would not stop as ordered, a military official said.

Two other civilians were wounded in the incident at a U.S. Army checkpoint on a highway near Najaf in southern Iraq, the official said. The military is investigating, he said.

The dead and wounded were among 13 women and children in a van that approached the checkpoint but did not stop, the official said. Soldiers fired warning shots and then shots into the vehicle’s engine, neither of which stopped it, he said.

Al Jazeera is going to have a field day, but there was nothing else these soldiers could do.