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| Iraq |
| Blast in Baghdad kills nine |
| 2008-05-02 |
| A bomb blast near a United States patrol in Baghdad killed nine Iraqis and wounded 23 people on Thursday. Iraqi police said the blast took place in the eastern Camp Sara district, where both Sunni and Shia Arabs live. A US military spokesman was unable to confirm the report. US forces said they killed 16 more fighters in gunfights, air strikes and tank battles beginning on Wednesday afternoon and running through the night. Iraqi Health Ministry figures show April as the deadliest month for Iraqi civilians since last August, with 968 killed nationwide. It was also the deadliest month for US troops since September, with 49 reported killed. A health official in Baghdad said the bodies of 11 dead and 72 wounded, including women and children, had been brought to Sadr CityÂ’s two hospitals in the past 24 hours. In a separate incident, the military said US forces had opened fire on militiamen that they caught loading rockets onto a launch sled late on Wednesday, killing six, including one who fled and then came back to try and salvage the rockets. Most of the fighting has taken place in the Sadr City slum, where armed groups loyal to Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have been battling US and Iraqi troops since late March. Intense fighting has taken place in the past three days, with militiamen launching large-scale ambushes on US and Iraqi positions after taking advantage of dust storms that grounded US Apache attack helicopters. Since the crackdown on the Shia fighters began in March, militants have fired salvoes of rockets across the capital, including into the heavily fortified Green Zone diplomatic and government compound. |
| Posted by:Fred |