BAGHDAD, 8 September 2004 — Fierce fighting between followers of Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr and US forces in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City yesterday killed at least 37 people, including two American soldiers, and injured over 200. In another part of the Iraqi capital two Italian women were kidnapped along with two Iraqis.
US tanks, their gun turrets swinging, 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 heavy black smoke rose over the mainly Shiite neighborhood.
Warplanes flew over the sprawling neighborhood of more than 2 million, firing flares to avoid being hit by anti-aircraft missiles.
The fighting in Sadr City erupted when militants attacked US forces carrying out routine patrols, said US Army Capt. Brian O’Malley. Two American soldier were killed. Five other soldiers were killed in separate incidents in and near Baghdad, including two members of the 13 Corps Support Command.
With the latest deaths, 998 US service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq in March 2003, according to a count by The Associated Press based on Defense Department reports.
Sadr spokesman Raed Al-Kadhimi blamed what he described as intrusive American incursions into Sadr City and attempts to arrest the cleric’s followers for the latest flare up. “Our fighters have no choice but to return fire and to face the US forces and helicopters pounding our houses,” Kadhimi said in a statement.
A senior Health Ministry official, Saad Al-Amili, said a total of 35 people have been killed and 203 injured in the Sadr City clashes in the past 24 hours.
The abduction of the Italians is likely to unnerve aid workers in the embattled country. Witnesses said about 20 men with AK-47 assault rifles and pistols with silencers stopped their vehicles in broad daylight in a busy commercial area of Baghdad and raided a building housing humanitarian organization Bridge to Baghdad.
They left with Italian staffers Simona Pari and Simona Torretta and two Iraqis — a woman who worked for another Italian organization Intersos and a male employee of Bridge to Baghdad.
“It appeared totally professional. They knew exactly who they wanted to abduct,” said one witness, who declined to be named.
The gunmen dragged the Iraqi woman away by her hair. “She was screaming,” a witness said.
Jean-Domique Bunel, an official from a committee that groups together aid organisations in Iraq, said he saw two well-dressed men with guns enter the building and take away the hostages. “The guards were unarmed and they did nothing,” he said.
The Italian women were involved in an aid initiative aimed at boosting school attendance in Basra and Baghdad — including in the capital’s Sadr City slums.
— Additional input from agencies
