Bodies lay scattered across two central Baghdad neighborhoods yesterday after a raging battle that left 20 suspected insurgents and four Iraqi soldiers dead and 16 US soldiers wounded, witnesses and officials said.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Cabinet ministers allied to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr issued a statement yesterday threatening to quit the government to protest the prime minister's lack of support for a timetable for US withdrawal.
Such a pullout by the very bloc that put Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in office could collapse his already perilously weak government.
The fighting in Fadhil and Sheik Omar, two Sunni enclaves, was the most intense since a massive push to pacify the capital began two months ago.
Iraqi soldiers held a security cordon around Fadhil yesterday and residents hid frightened in their homes, a witness said by telephone, on condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety.
The Muslim Scholars Association, a Sunni group, issued a statement quoting witnesses as saying Tuesday's battle began after Iraqi troops entered a mosque and executed two young men in front of other worshippers.
Ground forces used tear gas on civilians, it said.
"The association condemns this horrible crime carried out by occupiers and the government," the statement said.
But the witness in Fadhil said the two men were executed in an outdoor vegetable market, not in the mosque.
The US military said the battle began after US and Iraqi troops came under fire at approximately 7am during a routine search operation. Helicopter gunships then swooped in, engaging insurgents with machine gun fire, the military said in a statement.
Some Arab TV stations reported a US helicopter was shot down in the battle and showed video of a charred piece of mechanical wreckage that was impossible to identify.
But US military spokesman Christopher Garver said yesterday that two helicopters had suffered damage from small arms fire and returned to base. One of them released a rocket pod as it sped away, he said.
By yesterday, 13 of the 16 wounded US soldiers had returned to duty, said a senior US military official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the matter. Twenty suspected insurgents were killed and 30 wounded, he said.
Baghdad's security crackdown, which began on Feb. 14 and will see nearly 170,000 US forces in Iraq by the end of next month, has curbed some sectarian attacks and assassinations in the capital. But violence continues to flare periodically and has risen markedly in nearby cities and towns.
Al-Sadr's political committee issued its pullout threat a day after al-Maliki rejected an immediate US troop withdrawal.
"We see no need for a withdrawal timetable. We are working as fast as we can," al-Maliki told reporters during a four-day trip to Japan. He arrived in South Korea yesterday.
"Achievements on the ground" would dictate how long US troops remain, he said.
Al-Maliki spoke a day after tens of thousands of Iraqis took to the streets of two Shiite holy cities, on al-Sadr's orders, to protest the US presence in their country. The rally marked the fourth anniversary of Baghdad's conquer by US forces.
"The Sadrist movement strongly rejects the statements of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, in which he stood by the continued presence of occupation forces despite the will of the Iraqi people," said the statement.
"The Sadrist movement is studying the option of withdrawing from the Iraqi government -- a government that has not fulfilled its promises to the people," it said.
"We are serious about withdrawing," it added.
Also yesterday, US troops stormed al-Sadr's office in Diwaniyah, a predominantly Shiite city south of Baghdad, an Iraqi army officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the matter.
Snipers took up positions on roofs of nearby buildings and a surrounding market was evacuated and closed, he said.
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