BAGHDAD, 21 April 2007 — Clashes erupted between gunmen and US and Iraqi forces around a Shiite mosque in western Baghdad before Friday prayers, and two suspected insurgents were killed, the American military said. Also yesterday, the US military announced the death of a Marine in a rocket attack the night before on a base south of the capital. Two others were wounded in the attack on a US base in Mahmoudiyah, about 30 kilometers south of Baghdad, a statement said.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged Iraqi leaders yesterday to end sectarian conflict and warned that American troops would not stay on indefinitely if no progress is made. “Our commitment to Iraq is long term, but it is not a commitment to have our young men and women patrolling Iraqi streets open-endedly,” he told reporters after meeting Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki in Baghdad.
Gates, on his third visit to Iraq since taking over as the US defense chief, said he had spoken to the Shiite premier about “reaching out to the Sunnis” to end the bloodletting that has left tens of thousands of Iraqis dead.
Meanwhile, US forces killed eight suspected insurgents and captured 41 in several raids across Iraq, the military said. The small arms fire from around the blue-domed mosque in Baiyaa, a religiously mixed neighborhood in western Baghdad, began at about 9:45 a.m. yesterday, and coalition forces supported by US helicopters cordoned off the area and fought back, the statement said.
After killing two insurgents, the soldiers searched nearby buildings, found chemicals believed to be bomb-making materials and detained an Iraqi civilian, the military said. Iraqi soldiers searched the Ali Al-Baiyaa Mosque, but found no weapons or suspects. The coalition suffered no casualties in the fighting, and damage to the mosque was limited to several small bullet holes, an AP photographer on the scene said.
The military denied claims by witnesses that US helicopters and tanks opened fire on the mosque, killing four people and wounding seven. State TV alleged that a “coalition jet fighter” bombed the mosque, wounding eight Iraqi citizens.
In the holy city of Kufa, 160 kilometers south of Baghdad, Abdul Hadi Mohamadawi, a sheikh loyal to Moqtada Sadr, used his sermon at the Kufa mosque to condemn US forces. “American forces are conducting an offensive on a mosque in Baiyaa, and martyr worshippers are falling,” he said. “Let the government see what the occupiers are doing to our people.”
In addition to a weekly driving ban in Baghdad on Friday, the Muslim holy day, vehicle bans were imposed on the northern cities of Tal Afar and Mosul, authorities said. The ban in Tal Afar, 420 kilometers northwest of Baghdad, would be in place until further notice, said police commander Brig. Ibrahim Al-Jibouri. Intelligence reports indicated car bomb attacks were being planned in the area.
In other violence yesterday, seven suspected Iraqi insurgents were killed after they fired on American troops entering a building near Mahmoudiyah, about 30 kilometers south of Baghdad, the US military said. Another 15 men were detained.
