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US battles Shiites in Iraq; 5 GIs die
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-05-16 08:12
The U.S. military said Saturday it killed 18 gunmen believed loyal to radical
cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad, and jet fighters bombarded militia positions
on the capital's outskirts. Skirmishes persisted in the southern holy cities of
Najaf and Karbala.
An armed militiaman patrols Sadr
City, a suburb of Baghdad, Iraq May 15, 2004. American forces clashed
overnight with armed supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr in Sadr City, a poor
neighborhood in Baghdad where support for the radical Shiite cleric is
strong. Two militiamen, including a police lieutenant who had joined
al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, were killed, witnesses said.
[AP] | The U.S. military also announced the deaths
of five soldiers, including three killed by rebel attacks. In northern Iraq,
rebels fired a mortar round at an Iraqi army recruiting center, killing four
volunteers, hospital officials said.
U.S. troops are trying to disband the cleric's army and sideline its radical
leadership before handing power to a new Iraqi government June 30. Al-Sadr is a
fierce opponent of the U.S.-led occupation who launched an uprising last month
and faces an arrest warrant in the death of a rival moderate cleric last year.
In Najaf, militiamen fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a U.S. tank
stationed at the city's Police Directorate. The rocket missed its target, and
the two sides exchanged gunfire. Elsewhere, a shell landed on a house, wounding
a woman.
The normally bustling area around Karbala's Imam Hussein shrine, one of the
holiest centers for Shiite Muslims, was silent except for intermittent blasts
and machine-gun fire. After one blast, a huge column of black smoke wafted over
the golden-domed shrine. One Polish soldier was wounded in Saturday's
skirmishes, the Polish military said in Warsaw.
U.S. Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld speaks to U.S. troops May 13, 2004 at Abu Ghraib
prison near Baghdad. [AP] | The confrontations in
the two holy cities in Iraq's southern Shiite heartland were less intense than
in previous days.
In Baghdad, coalition forces killed 18 fighters, many of them in the eastern
Sadr City neighborhood, a stronghold of al-Sadr, in a dozen separate engagements
Friday and Saturday, the military said in a statement. Troops also killed seven
gunmen who attacked them in western Baghdad on Saturday morning, said Brig. Gen.
Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesman in Iraq.
Guerrillas fired a mortar round at an Iraqi army recruiting center in the
northern city of Mosul, killing four people and wounding 19, hospital officials
said. The shell landed in a crowd of people waiting to sign up for the military.
Kimmitt said the projectile was a mortar shell or a rocket-propelled grenade.
Insurgents have previously targeted police and army recruitment centers in an
effort to undermine Iraqi involvement in the U.S.-led coalition.
Hussein Assem, a 25-year-old army volunteer, suffered shrapnel wounds in a
hand and leg and was taken to a hospital.
"While I was at the entrance of the volunteer center, a mortar shell fell
near me," he said. "I fell down together with the others on the floor. I felt I
was in coma and I woke up to find myself at the hospital."
The coalition announced a reorganization of its military command structure
Saturday, creating a new headquarters with broad responsibility for operations
in Iraq, including the training of Iraqi security forces and involvement in the
political transition, and another headquarters that will handle daily tactical
operations against the insurgency.
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, a three-star general who was in charge of the
previous, unified command, will oversee all operations from the Multinational
Forces Iraq headquarters, Kimmitt said.
Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, a three-star general who commands the U.S. Army's 3rd
Corps, will direct daily military operations from a headquarters called
Multinational Corps Iraq.
British troops killed up to 16 Iraqi insurgents after their patrol was
ambushed between the southern cities of Amarah and Basra on Friday, and two
British soldiers were wounded, the Ministry of Defense said in London. However,
Iraqi witnesses said 21 militiamen were killed and that they were loyalists of
al-Sadr.
The U.S. military said three soldiers died from wounds suffered in rebel
attacks Friday, one died in a vehicle accident and one from "natural causes."
As of Friday, May 14, 775 U.S. service members have died since the beginning
of military operations in Iraq last year, according to the Department of
Defense. Of those, 565 died as a result of hostile action and 210 died of
non-hostile causes.
It was unclear whether the latest deaths were included in the Department of
Defense toll.
On Saturday, a rocket landed in the compound housing the headquarters of the
U.S.-led coalition in Baghdad, wounding one soldier and a civilian, both of whom
later returned to duty, Kimmitt said.
The slain militiamen in Baghdad's Sadr City included a police lieutenant who
joined al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army, witnesses said.
U.S. jet fighters bombarded the outskirts of Sadr City overnight, forcing
militiamen to flee positions, the witnesses said. On Saturday, U.S. soldiers
drove through the neighborhood with loudspeakers, urging people to hand in their
weapons within a week in exchange for money.
In Najaf, gunmen from al-Sadr's militia controlled the city center. They had
replaced a special force assigned to protect the Shrine of Imam Ali, one of Shia
Islam's holiest sites. Bands of fighters stood at almost every street corner
around the shrine, and some patrolled the area in a commandeered police pickup
truck.
On Friday, apparent gunfire slightly damaged a shrine, prompting calls for
revenge and even suicide attacks.
Twenty people signed up for an al-Sadr-backed suicide squad in the southern
city of Basra on Saturday, though only 10 were accepted after undergoing checks
by organizers.
In Karbala, al-Sadr militiamen moved to new positions to the south, leaving
the shrine district almost vacant except for small groups of Iranian and south
Asian pilgrims.
"I'm not scared," said Ahmed Ali, who sells Turkish lace from a shop in the
shrine district. "In Iraq, we are addicted to war."
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