Shiite militants and US forces battled yesterday in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City and a mortar barrage slammed into a busy eastern Baghdad neighborhood in a new round of violence in the capital that left five people dead and dozens wounded, officials said.
The violence came as war-weary Iraqis in the holy city of Najaf returned to their devastated offices and shops after three weeks of clashes there ended with a peace agreement.
PHOTO: EPA
Dozens of municipal workers were out for the first time in weeks, sweeping debris off roads lined with battle-scarred buildings, ripped up by US bombs.
Calm settled over the city a day after militants loyal to rebel Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr filed out of the revered Imam Ali Shrine and turned over the keys to Iraq's top Shiite cleric, symbolizing their acceptance of a peace deal to end the fighting against a combined US-Iraqi force.
But violence flared in Sadr City, an al-Sadr stronghold in Baghdad, between militants and US forces.
US soldiers in Humvees drove through the impoverished neighborhood with loudspeakers, demanding people stay home because coalition forces were "cleaning the area of armed men," according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene. Sporadic gunfire could be heard.
Saad al-Amili, a Health Ministry official, said three people were killed and 25 were wounded in the skirmishes.
Militants fired assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at US troops patrolling the area, said US Captain Brian O'Malley of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, adding that US forces suffered no casualties.
As the battles raged, insurgents fired a round of mortars into an eastern Baghdad neighborhood, killing two boys washing cars in a street near the former Iraqi National Olympic Committee building, said the Interior Ministry spokesman, Colonel Adnan Abdul-Rahman.
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