The US military said it had killed 49 "criminals" in clashes in the Baghdad district of Sadr City yesterday in a raid to capture a militant suspected of involvement in the kidnapping of US soldiers in Iraq.

US strikes had killed two toddlers in the poor district, the main stronghold in Baghdad for the Mehdi Army, a Shi'ite militia loyal to cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a witness said. Iraqi police said 13 people had been killed and 69 wounded.

The bodies of the toddlers, one in a nappy, lay on blankets in the morgue of Imam Ali hospital in Sadr City where doctors tended to wounded men, some elderly, and boys.

Hundreds of local residents, wailing and chanting "There is no God but Allah", carried wooden coffins through the streets.

The US military said in a statement the operation in Sadr City targeted criminals believed to be responsible for kidnapping US soldiers in May this year and November 2006.

"Coalition forces estimate that 49 criminals were killed in three separate engagements during this operation. Ground forces reported they were unaware of any innocent civilians being killed as a result of this operation," the military said in a statement.

Three US soldiers were kidnapped south of Baghdad in May. The body of one was found later that month but the other two are classed as missing and captured. Sunni Arab Islamists from al Qaeda in Iraq had claimed responsibility for the abductions.

Moqtada al-Sadr froze the activities of the Mehdi Army at the end of August for six months after 52 were killed in gun battles between rival Shi'ite militias in the city of Kerbala.

Abdul-Mehdi al-Muteyri, a senior Sadr official, called the attack "simply barbaric".

"Most of those killed and wounded were women, children and elderly men which shows the indiscriminate monstrosity of the attacks on this crowded area," he said.

Clouds of black smoke rose from Sadr City early yesterday as sirens wailed, heavy gunfire echoed and US helicopters circled overhead.

Afghan reinforcement

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates will consider shifting US troops from Kosovo to Afghanistan next year if NATO allies do not fulfill their commitments, US government officials said.

Gates, in Ukraine yesterday to ask eastern European countries for help in the war, had first considered laying the threat before NATO defense ministers this week at a meeting in the Netherlands, senior US officials said.

But upon the advice of senior military officers, the Pentagon chief has extended the US commitment to Kosovo to summer 2008. If NATO allies have not sent more troops, trainers and equipment to Afghanistan by then, Washington will consider pulling its 1,600 troops out of NATO's Kosovo force KFOR.

Gates has grown increasingly frustrated by the failure of NATO allies to fulfill promises they made more than a year ago to provide troops and equipment to the war in Afghanistan.

Agencies

(China Daily 10/22/2007 page9)