Dozens of fighters ambushed a US patrol in a top Shiite militia stronghold, firing rocket-propelled grenades and machine gun bursts as the US push into Sadr City increasingly faces pockets of close urban combat.
US forces struck back on Tuesday with 90kg guided rockets that devastated at least three buildings in the densely packed district that serves as the Baghdad base for the powerful Mahdi Army militia.
The US military said 28 militiamen were killed as the US patrol pulled back. Local hospital officials said dozens of civilians were killed or wounded.
Such street battles — in tight confines and amid frightened civilians — are increasingly becoming a hallmark of the drive into Sadr City and recall the type of head-on clashes last seen in large numbers during last year’s US troop buildup in Baghdad and surrounding areas.
US troops often have fought intense gunbattles as they cleared neighborhoods in Baghdad and former Sunni insurgent havens such as Anbar and Diyala provinces. But roadside bombings and rocket or mortar volleys against bases have been the more frequent mode of attack in recent years.
Meanwhile, two US soldiers were killed in northwestern Baghdad on Tuesday, the military said. One soldier died when his vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device. The other died of wounds sustained when he was attacked by small-arms fire, the military said in a statement. No other details were immediately available.
Clashes have intensified in Sadr City since the Mahdi Army leader — the anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr — reiterated his threat of an all-out war against US-led forces last week. US troops, meanwhile, find themselves increasingly drawn into the fight opened by the Iraqi government to cripple the power of Shiite militias.
“We are seeing larger groups of militants actually aggressively attacking Iraqi and US security forces,” said Lieutenant Colonel. Steve Stover, a military spokesman for US troops in Baghdad. “We’ve seen more of the brazen attacks in the daytime recently.”
The ambush on Tuesday came as a US patrol of heavily armored Stryker vehicles and tanks moved along a road where the US military is putting up a concrete barrier — which seeks to cut off the militants’ movements and hamper their ability to fire rockets and mortars at the US-protected Green Zone.
The militia fighters struck with rocket-propelled grenades and machine gun barrages fired from alleys and rooftops, the military said.
As the troops pulled back, one vehicle was hit with two roadside bombs, Stover said. Six US soldiers were wounded.
Stover said 28 militiamen were killed when US forces hit back with rockets.
Officials at two local hospitals said about 25 people had died and several dozen were wounded — mostly civilians. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to release the information.
Photos showed men pulling the body of a two-year-old boy, Ali Hussein, from the rubble of a building.
US officials said all precautions are taken to prevent civilian casualties, but blamed the militiamen for taking cover among their neighbors and families.
“The enemy continues to show little regard for innocent civilians, as they fire their weapons from within houses, alleyways and rooftops upon our soldiers,” said Colonel Allen Batschelet, chief of staff for the 4th Infantry Division in Baghdad.
TV footage showed children running for cover behind blast walls amid gunshots. Men helped carry several blood-soaked injured people onto stretchers to a local emergency hospital. Outside the hospital, the dead were placed inside plain wooden coffins.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the