A US helicopter fired on a wedding party in western 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, which took place at in a desert area 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 bodies of people who were allegedly killed in the incident. Most were wrapp-ed 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 traditional wedding celebration. US troops have sometimes mistaken celebratory gunfire for hostile fire.

US spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Dan Williams said: "I cannot comment on this because we have not received any reports from our units that this has happened nor that any were involved in such a tragedy.

"We take all these requests seriously and we have forwarded this inquiry to the Joint Operations Centre for further review and any other information that may be available."

The video footage shows the truck full of bodies and mourners with shovels digging graves over a wide, dusty area in Ramadi. A group of men crouch and weep around one coffin.

Dr Al-Ani said people at the wedding were firing weapons in the air, and that American troops came to investigate and then left. However, he said, helicopters attacked the area at about 3am. Two houses were destroyed in the attack.

Ramadi is a stronghold of insurgents who are fighting the US-led coalition.

One man on the video tape, Dahham Harraj, says: "This was a wedding and the planes came and attacked the people at a house.

"Is this the democracy and freedom that Bush has brought us?

"There was no reason."

In July 2002, Afghan officials said 48 civilians at a wedding party were killed and 117 wounded by a US air strike in Afghanistan's Uruzgan province.

An investigative report released by the US Central Command said the air strike was justified because US planes had come under fire.