Muqtada al-Sadr warns of war

2008-04-20 19:34

Baghdad - United States troops killed 12 militants during an "uptick" in fighting on Sunday, said the military, as fierce clashes broke out in Baghdad's Sadr City district after radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr warned he would declare war if a crackdown against his followers persisted.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, meanwhile, arrived in Baghdad on Sunday for a trip she said was intended to promote fresh political gains she saw to be flowing from the government-led assaults on radical militias.

Loud explosions were heard in central Baghdad as rockets or mortar shells were fired toward the US-protected Green Zone as Rice was meeting top Iraqi officials there. The area has faced regular shelling since the present tensions erupted last month.

The deadliest battle in Sadr City occurred just before 08:00 when gunmen attacked a US checkpoint with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortar shells, said a military spokesperson.

Planting roadside bombs

The Americans fought back, killing seven militants, then shooting to death two Iraqi snipers firing at them from a nearby rooftop as residents arrived to remove the bodies, according to Lieutenant-Colonel Steve Stover.

Three other militants were killed while trying to plant roadside bombs just after 06:30 elsewhere in Sadr City, said Stover.

He added that US troops also clashed with militants elsewhere in Baghdad, but no deaths were reported in those incidents.

Sadr City, a sprawling district of about 2.5 million people in eastern Baghdad, has seen daily clashes between US-backed Iraqi forces who have launched a crackdown against Shi'ite militias led by al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

But Stover said of the fighting on Sunday: "There was an uptick in violence in comparison with the past couple of weeks."

However, he declined to link it to al-Sadr's warning, which was broadcast over mosque loudspeakers in the district late on Saturday.

The deaths were in addition to seven armed "criminals" reported killed by the military on Saturday in Sadr City - two in gun battles and five in two separate air strikes.

Warning on website

Iraqi police and hospital officials also said six civilians - four men and two boys aged eight and 10 - were killed in fighting in Sadr City after midnight.

In the warning posted on Saturday on his website, al-Sadr said he had tried to defuse tensions by declaring a unilateral truce last August, only to see the government respond by closing his offices and "resorting to assassinations."

He accused the government of selling out to the Americans and branding his followers as criminals.

"So I am giving my final warning ... to the Iraqi government ... to take the path of peace and abandon violence against its people," al-Sadr said. "If the government does not refrain ... we will declare an open war until liberation."

- AP