IRAQ: Fierce battles broke out in Sadr city while Green Zone came under fire / Shi'ite militant gunmen still control the streets of Basra

Record ID: 352694

  • Title: IRAQ: Fierce battles broke out in Sadr city while Green Zone came under fire / Shi'ite militant gunmen still control the streets of Basra
  • Date: 28th March 2008
  • Summary: (BN08) BAGHDAD, IRAQ (MARCH 28, 2008) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF DESERTED STREETS IN CENTRAL BAGHDAD
  • Embargoed: 12th April 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: War / Fighting
  • Reuters ID: LVA7BRDGMN7VR4RG0J99VBHKNV8A
  • Story Text: Fierce battles broke out in the Shi'ite slum of Sadr city while the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad came under renewed fire by rockets or mortars.
    Shi'ite militant gunmen control the streets of Basra despite Prime Minister Maliki calling for their weapons to be handed-in.
    The streets of central Baghdad were quiet on Friday (March 28) one day after Iraqi authorities imposed a three-day curfew to contain clashes between Mehdi Army militants and Iraqi security forces that have threatened to spiral out of control.
    Authorities imposed the curfew in Baghdad to contain the violence, in which more than 150 people have been killed since the government launched the offensive on Tuesday (March 25) against Sadr's followers. The curfew is set to be lifted at 5 a.m. (0200 GMT) on Sunday (March 30).
    Fierce battles broke out in the Shi'ite slum of Sadr city at dawn on Friday, the U.S. forces said.
    In one strike a U.S. helicopter fired a Hellfire missile at gunmen firing from the roof of a building, killing four of them, according to a spokesman for U.S. forces in Baghdad.

    "U.S. helicopters were hovering above Sadr city five minutes ago.
    We were staying inside our house when we head two bangs. When we went out to see what happened, we heard another two bangs and you are seeing what happened," said an unidentified witness from Sadr city.
    U.S. forces said they killed 27 fighters in operations in the capital on Thursday (March 27).
    Their forces were drawn deeper into Iraq's four day-old crackdown on Shi'ite militants on Friday, launching air strikes in Basra for the first time and battling militants in Baghdad.
    The fighting has exposed a deep rift within Iraq's majority Shi'ite community and proven a gamble for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, whose forces have failed to dislodge fighters loyal to cleric Moqtada al-Sadr from Iraq's second largest city.
    The office of Iraq's parliamentary speaker was hit in a mortar or rocket strike on the Green Zone government and diplomatic compound, according to a government official.
    Speaker Mahmoud Mashhadani was not in his office and nor were any of his staff as it was the Muslim Friday holiday. One security guard was killed, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
    The situation in Basra was tense on Friday (March 28), after U.S.
    forces launched air strikes in the city for the first time and battled militants in Baghdad.
    Despite the extension of a deadline that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki gave to Shi'ite militia in the city to hand in their weapons, gunmen with heavy machine guns were deploying in the streets, showing that they are in control and ready to fight with Iraqi security forces.
    Tribal leader in Basra, Sheikh Abduljalil al-Attashan, called for Maliki to pullout his troops from the city and work on averting trouble.
    U.S. President George W. Bush has praised Maliki's "boldness"
    in launching the operation, the largest military campaign carried out yet by Maliki's forces without U.S. or British combat units.
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