Fierce clashes in Iraq kill 34 people
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-09-07 20:58

U.S. forces battled insurgents loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City on Tuesday, in clashes that killed 34 people, including one American soldier, and wounded 193, U.S. and Iraqi authorities said.

U.S. tanks moved into the neighborhood and armored personnel carriers and Bradley fighting vehicles were deployed at key intersections. Ambulances with sirens wailing rushed the wounded to hospitals as plumes of black smoke rose into the sky.

Iraqi youths burn a cloth printed with the US flag in front of a burnt US military tanker. Iraq was steeped in blood as a fledgling truce in a Baghdad rebel bastion was shattered by fresh fighting that officials said left 40 killed and scores wounded, while the US death count neared the 1,000 mark. [AFP]

Several warplanes flew over the sprawling neighborhood of more than 2 million.

In another part of the Iraqi capital, a roadside bomb targeted the Baghdad governor's convoy, killing two people but leaving him uninjured, the Interior Ministry said. Three of Gov. Ali al-Haidri's bodyguards were also hurt in the attack Tuesday in the western neighborhood of Hay al-Adel.

The fighting in Sadr City erupted when militants attacked U.S. forces carrying out routine patrols, said U.S. Army Capt. Brian O'Malley.

"We just kept coming under fire," he said.

O'Malley said the American soldier was killed by small-arms fire and that several others were wounded.

A senior Health Ministry official, Saad al-Amili, said 33 Iraqis have been killed and 193 injured in the Sadr City clashes in the past 24 hours.

An al-Sadr spokesman in Baghdad, Sheik Raed al-Kadhimi, blamed what he described as intrusive American incursions into Sadr City and attempts to arrest the cleric's followers.

"Our fighters have no choice but to return fire and to face the U.S. forces and helicopters pounding our houses," al-Kadhimi said in a statement.

The impoverished neighborhood had been relatively calm since al-Sadr called for cease-fire last week and announced he was going into politics.

Al-Sadr led a three-week uprising in the holy city of Najaf that ended 10 days ago with a peace deal that allowed his Mahdi militia fighters to walk away with their guns. The combat in Najaf left thousands dead and devastated much of the city.

Many Mahdi militiamen are believed to have returned to their stronghold in Sadr City.

Tuesday's violence came a day after a suicide attack on a military convoy outside Fallujah killed seven U.S. Marines and three Iraqi soldiers, U.S. military officials said. It was the deadliest day for American forces in four months.

A group linked to Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi _Tawhid and Jihad — posted a statement on the Internet Tuesday claiming responsibility for the slayings.

The force of the blast on a dusty stretch of wasteland nine miles north of Fallujah, wrecked two Humvees and hurled the suicide car's engine far from the site, witnesses said.

The bombing underscored the challenges U.S. commanders face in securing Fallujah and surrounding Anbar province, the heartland of a Sunni Muslim insurgency bent on driving coalition forces from the country.

U.S. forces have not patrolled in Fallujah since a three-week siege of the city in April that was aimed at rooting out militiaman. As a result, insurgents have strengthened their hold on the city, using it as a base to make car bombs and launch attacks on U.S. and Iraqi government forces.

Since midday Monday, five American soldiers have been killed in attacks in Iraq, the U.S. military said in separate statements Tuesday. The death in Sadr City is same as one mentioned earlier in story.

_One soldier from the Army's 13th Corps Support Command was killed when his convoy was hit by a roadside bomb near the Iraqi capital late Monday.

_One Task Force Baghdad soldier died early Tuesday from wounds sustained from a roadside bombing against his convoy a day earlier in Baghdad.

_Another soldier with Task Force Baghdad died Monday from wounds sustained during an unspecified attack in Baghdad.

_A second soldier from the 13th Coscom was killed in a roadside bomb attack near Qayarrah, just north of Baghdad.

_A third Task Force Baghdad soldier was killed in a rocket-propelled grenade strike during clashes in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City early Tuesday.

The military said it was withholding the names of all the dead soldiers pending family notification. The latest deaths came in addition to the killing of seven Marines early Monday when a car bomb exploded near their convoy on the outskirts of Fallujah.

In total, 995 U.S. service members have now died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq in March 2003, according to a count by The Associated Press based on Defense Department figures.

In other violence:

_The son of the governor of the northern city of Mosul was killed in a drive-by shooting Tuesday. Lieth Duried Kashmoula died of two shots to the chest, hospital officials said.

_Unknown gunmen killed the deputy director of Baghdad's al-Karama hospital, Abbas al-Husseini, the Health Ministry said. The motive for the attack was not known.

_Two Iraqi policemen were killed and two others injured in a drive-by-shooting in Latifiyah, 25 miles south of Baghdad late Monday, police said Tuesday.

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