Airstrike Continues U.S. Killing Spree In Sadr City
BAGHDAD (Agencie France Presse) — A US air strike in Baghdad’s Shiite bastion of Sadr City on Thursday killed at least four people as U.S. targeting and killing of Mahdi Army militants and their leaders continued for a fifth straight day in the radical cleric Moqtada Al Sadr’s center of power.
Six people were wounded in the air strike just after midnight near Al-Albaith mosque in the centre of Sadr City, stronghold of the Shiite radical clericwhose Mahdi Army militiamen are fighting with Iraqi and US forces.
Residents of the sprawling eastern Baghdad district which has been under vehicle curfew since March 28 reported sporadic firefights punctuated by mortar fire through the night and into the morning.
Around 70 militants have been killed and scores wounded since the U.S. began an offensive in Sadr City on Sunday, more than 20 on Wednesday alone, according to security and medical officials.
The US military says it is chasing “criminals” firing rockets into Baghdad and the heavily-fortified Green Zone where the Iraqi government and US embassy are based.
It said on Thursday it had killed 13 “criminals” in operations the previous 24 hours in Sadr City and northwest Shuala neighbourhood, another Mahdi Army stronghold.
In one incident, a combined US-Iraqi checkpoint was attacked from a nearby rooftop by small arms fire and troops retaliated, killing one of the attackers, a military statement said.
Another four fighters were killed when troops retaliated after they were attacked with rocket-propelled grenades at a checkpoint, while an airstrike on Wednesday night killed four gunmen after they attacked Iraqi troops.
Another four militiamen were killed in firefights, the US military statement said.
At least 12 US soldiers have been killed in Baghdad since Sunday, most of them in Sadr City, according to an AFP tally based on American military statements.
They have been killed in different incidents by rockets, roadside bombs, rocket-propelled grenades or small arms fire.
US President George W. Bush is to give a speech in Washington on Iraq and US troop levels at 11:30 am (1530 GMT) on Thursday, the White House said.
Sadr fighters began clashing with security forces across Shiite regions of Iraq on March 25 after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered a crackdown on militiamen in the southern city of Basra.
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