|
12 killed in Iraq's Sadr City
19/04/2008 14:29 - (SA)
Baghdad - Twelve people died in overnight clashes in Baghdad's Sadr City district, which had become a chief battleground between United States and Iraqi forces and the Mahdi Army of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, police and hospital officials said on Saturday.
Iraqi troops also kept up the pressure on Shi'ite militants in the southern city of Basra, where they fanned out through a Mahdi Army stronghold.
In Sadr City's general hospital, officials said 71 people were admitted for treatment of injuries received in the fighting. The hospital also received 12 bodies, said an official who asked not to be identified because he was not authorised to release the information.
The fighting came amid reports that Iraqi troops backed up by US forces were trying to recapture a position in the district abandoned a day ago by a company of government soldiers.
Military launches operation against Shi'ite
Security forces in the area also had come under repeated attack by militants trying to prevent the construction of a concrete wall through the district.
The wall - a concrete barrier of varying height up to about 3.6 meters - was being built along a main street dividing the southern portion of Sadr City from the northern, where Mahdi Army fighters were concentrated.
American commanders hoped that construction of the Sadr City wall, which began on Tuesday, would hamper their ability to fire rockets and mortars at the Green Zone, the central Baghdad district, where government offices and the US Embassy were located.
The zone had been regularly shelled since the Iraqi military launched an operation against Shi'ite militias in Basra on March 25. That operation quickly stalled amid fierce resistance from the militants and mass desertions from the security forces.
Two gunmen killed
Militants had used mortars and rockets of various calibers in attacks on the Green Zone.
The US military said one of its attack helicopters located and hit a mortar crew in Sadr City at 03:30 on Saturday, killing two gunmen and destroying the weapon.
The near-daily clashes in Sadr City since then had fuelled worries over a total breakdown of a truce called last year by Muqtada al-Sadr, with fears of wider violence.
The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki also kept up the pressure on al-Sadr's followers in Basra, launching an operation early on Saturday aimed at clearing militants from the Hayaniyah district, a Mahdi Army stronghold in Iraq's oil capital.
British artillery and US warplanes were supporting the Iraqi army operation, which met minimal resistance, military spokesperson major Tom Holloway said.
He said that as a show of force British gunners fired a barrage of shells into an empty area near Hayaniyah and US warplanes bombed it.
"This was intended to demonstrate the firepower available to the Iraqi forces," Holloway said.
- AP
|
News
