Iraqi security forces battled Shiite gunmen south of Baghdad on Friday, raising tensions among rival factions of the country's majority religious community and straining a seven-month ceasefire proclaimed by the biggest Shiite militia.
Also on Friday, a US soldier was killed and four others wounded in a rocket or mortar attack south of the capital, the US military said. The death raised to at least 3,993 US troops who have died since the war started five years ago.
The statement did not provide more details about the location and the area has a volatile mix of Sunni and Shiite extremists.
The fighting in Kut, 160km southeast of Baghdad, broke out on Thursday night when factions of the Mehdi Army, led by anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, attacked checkpoints throughout the city, officials and witnesses said.
Two policemen and two gunmen were killed during the clashes in Kut, which ended on Friday, Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Major General Abdul-Karim Khalaf said.
Also on Friday, US and Iraqi forces raided neighborhoods of southern Baghdad and Diwaniyah, 130km south of the capital, detaining suspected members of the Mehdi Army, Iraqi police said.
Al-Sadr proclaimed a ceasefire last August and extended it indefinitely last month. But the firebrand cleric, who led two uprisings against US-led forces in 2004, has authorized his followers to defend themselves if attacked.
Al-Sadr's supporters have complained that the Shiite-led government has used the ceasefire to accelerate a crackdown against their movement in Baghdad and the Shiite heartland south of the capital.
Iraqi security forces are heavily influenced by a rival Shiite group, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which wields considerable power in the central government.
Rival Shiite groups have been battling for control of the oil-rich south with an eye toward the eventual withdrawal of US-led forces.
A Sadrist member of parliament alleged that the crackdown in Kut and elsewhere in the south was part of a move by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa party and the supreme council to prevent al-Sadr's followers from winning control of key southern provinces in provincial elections expected this fall.
"They have no supporters in the central and southern provinces, but we do," Ahmed al-Massoudi said. "If the crackdown against the Sadrists continues, we will begin consultations with other parliamentary blocs to bring down the government and replace it with a genuinely national one."
Also see: Captains run the Iraq War, but corporate jobs beckon
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
‘VERY DIRE’: This year’s drought, exacerbated by El Nino, is affecting 44 percent of Malawi’s crop area and up to 40 percent of its population of 20.4 million In the worst drought in southern Africa in a century, villagers in Malawi are digging for potentially poisonous wild yams to eat as their crops lie scorched in the fields. “Our situation is very dire, we are starving,” 76-year-old grandmother Manesi Levison said as she watched over a pot of bitter, orange wild yams that she says must cook for eight hours to remove the toxins. “Sometimes the kids go for two days without any food,” she said. Levison has 30 grandchildren under her care. Ten are huddled under the thatched roof of her home at Salima, near Lake Malawi, while she boils
RSS