BAGHDAD, 16 May 2004 — The commander of coalition forces in Iraq yesterday demanded a swift end to the uprising led by Moqtada Sadr as fresh clashes across the country claimed dozens of lives.
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez said the uprising had to be ended “fairly quickly” after more than a month of fighting between Sadr’s followers and coalition troops across central and southern Iraq. More than 40 people were reported killed in the 24 hours to yesterday afternoon after the US forces vowed to destroy Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia that has hamstrung its efforts for a stable handover of sovereignty by June 30.
The US-led forces described fighting in the towns of Nassiriyah and Amara as a “minor” uprising that had been quelled. The uprising started last month when US overseer Paul Bremer closed a Sadr newspaper with a tiny circulation and troops arrested one of his aides over the murder of rival cleric last year.
The worst of the latest fighting was near the southern city of Amara late Friday. British troops killed 20 militiamen after two vehicles were ambushed. US troops killed another 14 militiamen in a series of clashes in Sadr City, a Shiite district of the capital where Sadr’s Mehdi Army has battled with US forces for weeks.
In the central holy city of Karbala, the cleric’s militia clashed with US forces for a fourth straight day, losing four fighters, as coalition soldiers using loudspeakers urged people to leave the area.
The fighting raged amid a continuing furor over abuse of prisoners by coalition troops which prompted Sanchez to order an end to the use of sleep deprivation and other high-stress tactics in interrogations.
The move followed an outcry in the US Congress over an interrogation policy approved for Iraqi detainees late last year, which some legal experts said paid scant regard to the Geneva Conventions.
Sanchez’s order to end the “stress and duress” tactics coincided with a lightning visit to Iraq by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, during which he toured the Abu Ghraib prison at the centre of the scandal.
Three more US soldiers were killed in separate incidents on Friday and yesterday taking to 781 the number of US servicemen killed since the start of the US-led invasion in March last year. British troops came under attack in the south near Amara, 365 kilometers southeast of Baghdad, late Friday sparking a five-hour gunbattle that left 20 militiamen dead, a British spokesman said.
In the northern city of Mosul, four Iraqis were killed and 17 wounded in an insurgent attack on a recruiting center for the new Iraqi army, police said. The victims were trying to enroll with the US-trained force designed to take security responsibilities in the lead-up to elections scheduled for January.
