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More deaths in Iraq as al-Sadr makes call for huge protest

At least 12 people were killed and 23 injured in violence in Iraq yesterday, including five policemen in a US gunship shelling, while the Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called for a million-man march marking the anniversary of US occupation of the country.

Al-Sadr called on all Iraqis to take part in a million-man march on Wednesday, starting from the Shiite holy city of Najaf to mark the fifth anniversary of the US-led occupation of the country, a statement issued by al-Sadr’s office in the city said.

The call was made to Iraq’s “Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds and Arabs.”

“It is time you expressed your rejection of the unjust occupiers and raise your voices against them,” the statement said.

Al-Sadr, believed to be in Iran, urged people to raise Iraqi flags in the march to confirm national unity and to call for independence.

In Hilla, south of Baghdad, security officials said that night guards opened fire by mistake on a US patrol in the early hours yesterday in Jamiyah district in the city center.

Later, a US gunship shelled the scene of the shooting, killing five policemen and injuring 11, including two women in their homes, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In the northern city of Mosul, seven people were killed and 12 injured in a suicide bombing overnight, the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency reported.

A suicide bomber driving a car blew it up near a checkpoint in west Mosul, General Khaled Abdel-Sattar, the spokesman for operation command in Nineveh Province, told VOI.

A woman and a child are among the dead and five children and three soldiers among the wounded.

In other news, sources at Iraq’s defense ministry told VOI that Iraqi army forces had detained the leader of Thaar-allah Shiite party.

The Shiite party leader, Youssef Sinawy, was taken from his house in Nowab al-Dobat district. Forces also arrested his three brothers and killed his security guard after engaging in heavy clashes with the Iraqi troops.
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