Fighting erupted early on Monday in a Shia militia stronghold of Baghdad, leaving three people dead, while 10 people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up among mourners at a funeral in Saddam Hussein's hometown. A roadside bombing southwest of Baghdad killed three U.S. soldiers late Sunday, the U.S. military said. No further details were released. Seven other people were killed and six bodies were found on Sunday. In Baghdad, sounds of heavy gunfire and explosions rattled the Sadr City district starting about 1 a.m. Monday and persisted for more than an hour. | “... sounds of heavy gunfire and explosions rattled the Sadr City district starting about 1 a.m. Monday and persisted for more than an hour...” |
The U.S. military said in a statement the fighting started when Iraqi and U.S. forces raided the area to catch extremists suspected of running torture cells. The forces took fire as soon as they arrived and one U.S. soldier was injured, statement said. The U.S. military recently reinforced its troop strength in the city to try to reclaim the streets from militias, including al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. ``There's gunfire from all sides,'' Kadhim al-Mohammedawi, a civil servant who lives in Sadr City, said by telephone. ``We can hear women and children screaming.''
The district became quiet after more than an hour, except for the sounds of emergency vehicles racing through the streets. Col. Hassan Chaloub, police chief of Sadr City, said three people including a woman were killed and 12 injured, including five children and two women. He said three cars and three houses were destroyed. He said U.S. jets flew over the city and calls of ``God is Great'' and ``There's no God but God'' blasted from loudspeakers in mosques.
Late Sunday, scattered clashes broke out between Shia militiamen and Iraqi soldiers near Hamza Square on the edge of Sadr City, police said. Two militiamen were killed and five combatants were wounded, including two Iraqi soldiers, police said.
| “... the mourners were attending services for the father of a local council member, who was killed in the attack...” |
| No, the sidebar doesn't make any sense to me, either. Why hold a funeral for him if he wasn't killed until the attack? |
Also Sunday, several U.S. Marines were wounded and a few vehicles were destroyed by a suicide car bombing in Anbar province, the U.S. military said without further details. Iraqi police said the attack was in Fallujah, a heavily guarded city 65 kilometers (40 miles) west of Baghdad.
In scattered violence across the country Sunday, two policemen, two truck drivers, a government security guard, a Sunni preacher and a suspected insurgent were killed. Also Sunday, five bodies were found in Baghdad and one in the southeastern city of Amarrah. In the Kurdish province of Sulaimaniyah, security forces fired warning shots to disperse hundreds of demonstrators who burned tires and blocked roads to protest high fuel prices and poor living conditions. Three people were injured in the protest in the town of Chamchamal.