News
from the Arab part of Iraq
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Shiite militia clash with Iraqi and US
forces in Baghdad
7.8.2006 |
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BAGHDAD (AFP) -
Iraqi and US forces have fought a deadly gunbattle
with Shiite militiamen after launching an overnight
raid on an impoverished eastern Baghdad district,
defence ministry and militia officials said.
In a spate of rebel attacks on Monday, 11 people,
including six Iraqi soldiers and two policemen, were
killed across Iraq on Monday.
Separately, the US military announced the deaths of
three of its soldiers southwest of Baghdad on Sunday
in a roadside bomb attack.
The gunbattle, which pitched Iraqi forces and US
advisers against the Mehdi Army of radical Shiite
cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, was the first such clash
since US reinforcements began rolling into Baghad to
quell a brutal sectarian war.
Mohammed al-Askari, a spokesman for the Iraqi
defence ministry, said: "Our forces, supported by
multinational forces, headed to a target based on
certain intelligance information to arrest three
wanted men.
"The fight continued for two hours. As a result two
militiamen were killed and three others wounded. Two
Iraqi soldiers were wounded," a defence official
said.
Fallah Shanshal, a lawmaker from Sadr's camp,
complained that the cleric's followers were being
attacked by US-led forces instead of loyalists of
former president Saddam Hussein and "terrorists",
whom he thought better targets.
"The raid was also an act of disrespect to the prime
minister's decision to not carrying out such
operations during nightime. We demand an
investigation to reveal which dirty squad took part
in the raid," he told reporters.
But according to a statement from the US-led
coalition, the operation was aimed at "individuals
involved in punishment and torture cell activities".
Sadr's militiamen are widely alleged to have taken
part in a wave of sectarian and political murders
across Baghdad in recent months, although coalition
and Iraqi officials are careful never to accuse it
publicly.
"Iraqi forces, and their coalition advisers, began
taking fire immediately upon arrival at their
objective; the fire lasted for the duration of the
operation and continued as they left the
neighbourhood," the US statement said.
US generals have made winning back Baghdad for the
Iraqi government their priority, after violence
split the city on sectarian lines and a vicious war
between rival Sunni and Shiite death squads left
thousands dead.
AFP
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