Violence flares in Iraqi slum loyal to radical Shiite cleric

By Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson
Knight Ridder Newspapers

KARIM KADIM / AP Supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr gather yesterday at one of their positions in Sadr City, Baghdad. U.S. forces battled al-Sadr's supporters in the Baghdad slum.

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Across town, heavily armed gunmen kidnapped two female Italian aid workers and two of their Iraqi colleagues from their office in a daylight raid.

The soldier died in a rocket-propelled grenade attack that injured two comrades, according to a U.S. military statement.

In other attacks yesterday, the U.S. military used airstrikes and shelling to quell insurgents in Fallujah who had fired on nearby U.S. troop positions. Four people were killed and 11 wounded in those strikes, Iyad Muhsin of the Fallujah General Hospital said. Early today, two Iraqis were killed by explosions that rocked the city, Muhsin said. The U.S. military had no comment.

Militants also attempted to kill Baghdad's governor in a roadside bombing in the city yesterday. The attack killed two people but the governor escaped injury, the Interior Ministry said. Three of his bodyguards were injured.

To the north in Mosul, militants fatally shot the son of that city's governor yesterday.

But perhaps the most eerie attack came yesterday afternoon in the raid on the Italian aid agency, Bridge to Baghdad. More than a dozen heavily armed kidnappers described by witnesses as "well dressed" in uniforms or suits forced two female Italian staff members and two Iraqi employees out of the aid organization's office in a Baghdad commercial area and into waiting cars

Fighting in or near Baghdad since Monday afternoon has claimed the lives of six other U.S. troops, bringing the two-day, U.S. death toll to 14.

Aides to al-Sadr said the fighting wouldn't deter them from soon unveiling a political platform based on fundamentalist Islam that would allow his anti-U.S. movement to participate in elections next year. "We're the people who fought and confronted him [Saddam]," said the cleric's Baghdad spokesman, Sheik Raed al Kadhimi.

The battle in Sadr City erupted when militants attacked what U.S. officials said were routine patrols. Al Kadhimi, however, described them as unjustified U.S. raids into the sprawling neighborhood of 2 million, aimed at arresting al-Sadr's militia members. Talks between al-Sadr's representatives in the militia stronghold and interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's government to bring about a peaceful resolution died amid the continuing attacks, al Kadhimi said.

U.S. troops are not finding it easy to disband al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia by force. The neighborhood was flush with militants and teens lighting fires and using hammers to break up asphalt on streets, then planting explosives in hopes of maiming U.S. tanks rumbling past, witnesses said.
 
Other Sadr City residents blocked roads with rocks and tires while armed militants ran through alleyways in search of U.S. targets to shoot with Kalashnikov assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

U.S. warplanes fired flares overhead, as they sought to avoid anti-aircraft missiles. Arab TV later broadcast footage of what appeared to be a U.S. tank towing another damaged tank.

"There were only seven martyrs killed," al Kadhimi claimed, referring to the Mahdi Army militants. "Most of those killed and wounded were ordinary people and children."

Between the renewed fighting in Baghdad and action by Iraqi authorities to root out Mahdi Army members hiding in Najaf, the cease-fire brokered by Iraq's top Shiite spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al Husseini al Sistani on Aug. 27 is in danger of collapse.

Last night in Najaf, where al-Sadr is believed to be operating, more than 1,000 demonstrators marched for the third time this week to demand that he and his militants leave. They also chanted warnings that he not turn up for Friday prayers in Kufa at the mosque from which the radical cleric has built his movement.

Material from The Associated Press is included in this report. Knight Ridder special correspondent Qassim Mohammed contributed to this report from Najaf.