Battles erupt with forces loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr
Tuesday, September 7, 2004 Posted: 1413 GMT (2213 HKT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Twelve U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq since Monday in six combat incidents, U.S. military officials said, bringing the number of American deaths in the war to 998.
Five soldiers and seven Marines were killed in the fighting. The latest death came Tuesday morning in Baghdad's Sadr City when a rocket-propelled grenade attack killed a soldier, the military said.
The Sadr City fighting erupted between U.S. forces and insurgents in the teeming slum after a few days of calm.
Battles between U.S. troops and militants loyal to Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr killed at least 33 Iraqis in the Baghdad slum district and wounded 200 others, Iraqi officials said.
Three tanks and three other U.S. military vehicles were burning in Sadr City. Along with tanks, armored personnel carriers, Bradley Fighting Vehicles and jets were seen and heard.
The fighting erupted when militants attacked American forces carrying out routine patrols, said U.S. Army Capt. Brian O'Malley.
"We just kept coming under fire," The Associated Press reported O'Malley as saying.
U.S. and Iraqi authorities have been trying to hammer out a peace agreement there a week and a half after al-Sadr and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani reached a cease-fire in the south central city of Najaf -- where fierce fighting raged between U.S. and Iraqi forces and the Mehdi militia for three weeks in August.
An al-Sadr spokesman in Baghdad, Sheik Raed al-Kadhimi, blamed the outbreak of fighting on what he described as hostile U.S. incursions into Sadr City and attempts to arrest the cleric's followers.
The other U.S. deaths Monday included a Task Force Baghdad soldier killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad Monday night.
A soldier with the 13th Corps Support Command was killed in the northern Iraq town of Qayarra when a roadside bomb exploded, the military said.
Another U.S. soldier was killed and one wounded Monday night when a roadside bomb exploded as their military convoy passed by on a road near Baghdad, according to the U.S. military. The soldiers, whose names have not been released, also were assigned to the 13th Corps Support Command.
A U.S. soldier wounded in a Baghdad attack Monday afternoon died a short time later in a hospital, a U.S. military official said.
Earlier Monday, seven U.S. Marines and three Iraqi national guardsmen were killed by a suicide car bomb as they patrolled on the outskirts of Falluja.
It was the largest number of casualties U.S. forces have suffered in a single incident since fighting in the spring near Ramadi.
Cleanup in Najaf
Iraqi and U.S. authorities continue their cleanup in Najaf.
The Coalition Press Information Center said some 240 improvised explosive devices have been found and disabled in the holy Wadi al-Salem cemetery and along roads in the Old City of Najaf.
At the request of local leaders, U.S. Marines have been working with Iraqi personnel to clear weapons caches and explosive devices hidden by al-Sadr's militia, the center reports.
Iraqi security forces said that locals and cemetery caretakers have joined in the cleanup effort, moving weapons caches alongside the cemetery's roads for pickup by Iraqi forces.
Iraqi officials attacked
The governor of Baghdad escaped an assassination attempt unhurt early Tuesday when his convoy was attacked in a western district of the capital.
The convoy of the governor, Ali Al-Haidary, was driving through the Al-Adil district when the attack began, Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdul Rahman said.
Video from the scene showed at least one body being placed in an ambulance.
Masked gunmen Tuesday assassinated a Baghdad hospital official, Iraqi officials said.
Abbas al-Husseiny, deputy director of Al-Karama Hospital, was assassinated when three gunmen entered a restaurant where he was eating breakfast, according to police Col. Riyadh Abraheem and Sa'ad Al-Amili, a Ministry of Health official.
The restaurant and hospital are in al-Thahab district, officials said.
In northern Iraq, unknown assailants shot and killed the son of Nineveh provincial Gov. Duraid Kashmoula, Mosul police said. Laith Duraid Kashmoula was driving to work when assailants pulled up next to his car and opened fire with small arms, police said.
He was an employee in the Iraqi government's anti-corruption office in Mosul, the largest city in the northern Iraqi province. The governor's cousin, Usama Kashmoula, was shot dead in an ambush two months ago.
CNN's Kevin Flower, Cal Perry, Faris Qasira and Walter Rodgers contributed to this report.