BAGHDAD, Iraq - Two American soldiers were killed Saturday in Baghdad, seven
Shiite construction workers were gunned down and five Sunni civilians were blown
up, deepening the capital's security crisis. Shiite politicians called on the
prime minister to cancel his visit to Washington to protest Israel's attacks in
Lebanon.
U.S. troops secure the
site of multiple bomb explosions, Saturday, July 22, 2006, in east
Baghdad, Iraq. U.S. and Iraqi troops sealed off an area of east Baghdad
following the blasts and systematically searched homes and shops looking
for weapons. [AP] |
Elsewhere, US and Iraqi forces backed by a helicopter gunship launched a
major attack Saturday on a headquarters of a radical Shiite militia south of
Baghdad, killing 15 militiamen in a three-hour battle, the US said.
One US soldier died in the second of two roadside bombs that exploded in east
Baghdad at mid-morning. An Iraqi civilian was killed by the first blast, police
said. Another American soldier died Saturday evening when gunmen attacked his
patrol with small arms fire, the military said.
The seven Shiite workers were killed and two were wounded when gunmen opened
fire on a construction site near Baghdad International Airport, police said.
Later Saturday, a mortar shell killed five civilians at a market in the mostly
Sunni neighborhood of Amil in west Baghdad, police said.
Two rockets also blasted the heavily guarded Green Zone, which includes the
U.S. and British embassies as well as major Iraqi government offices, but the
U.S. military said there were no casualties.
Much of the violence appeared to be part of the tit-for-tat reprisal killings
by Sunni and Shiite extremists which have led to a dramatic deterioration of
security in the Iraqi capital.
With violence rising, the United States is moving to bolster American troop
strength in the Baghdad area, putting on hold plans to draw down on the
127,000-member U.S. military mission in Iraq.
U.S. officials have pointed to Shiite militias as a major cause of sectarian
violence. In a bid to curb militia influence, American troops moved Saturday
against the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in Musayyib, 40 miles
south of Baghdad.
US troops reported killing 15 gunmen in a three-hour firefight in Musayyib
but described them only as "thugs and criminals" who had tried to take over the
city. Sheik Jalil al-Nouri, an aide to al-Sadr, said U.S. and Iraqi forces
attacked the Mahdi Army office in Mussayib and that sporadic shooting was still
underway late Saturday.
Local officials said the Americans conducted a similar raid on al-Sadr's
office in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad and scene of an attack
five days ago in which 50 people were killed.
In London, the British military announced Saturday that British troops
arrested the Mahdi Army commander in Basra in raids last weekend against militia
weapons depots.
With violence rising, the United States is moving to bolster American troop
strength in the Baghdad area, putting on hold plans to draw down on the
127,000-member US military mission in Iraq.
The security crisis in Baghdad is expected to figure prominently when Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki meets President George W. Bush at the White House on
Tuesday. US officials are expected to push al-Maliki, a Shiite, to move quickly
to calm sectarian tensions and abolish Shiite militias blamed for much of the
violence.
But the visit comes amid rising anger among Iraqis over Israel's attacks in
Lebanon, launched after Shiite Hezbollah militiamen seized two Israeli soldiers.
On Saturday, the Fadhila party, which is part of al-Maliki's Shiite alliance,
urged the prime minister to call off his visit.
