BAGHDAD, 1 July 2007 — American soldiers rolled into Baghdad’s Shiite Sadr City slum yesterday in search of “Iranian-linked” militants and as many as 26 Iraqis were killed in what a US officer described as “an intense firefight.” But residents, police and hospital officials said eight civilians were killed in their homes and angrily accused US forces of firing blindly on the innocent.
Residents woke before dawn to the sound of rockets slamming into buildings and machine-gun fire echoing off the concrete apartment blocks of the impoverished neighborhood, an AFP correspondent said. Dozens of gunmen ran through the streets, firing pistols and machine guns at the US helicopters circling overhead, which responded with missiles. Several cars and homes were destroyed.
Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki condemned the raids and demanded an explanation for the assault into a district where he has barred US operations in the past. Separately, two American solders were charged with the premeditated murder of three Iraqis, the US military said yesterday.
And in Muqdadiyah, 90 kilometers north of the capital, police said a suicide bomber blew himself up near a crowd of police recruits, killing at least 23 people and wounding 17.
A US soldier was killed Friday and three wounded when a sophisticated, armor-piercing bomb hit their combat patrol in southern Baghdad, the military announced a day later. The US military said it conducted two pre-dawn raids in Sadr City, killing 26 “terrorists” who attacked US troops with small arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs. But Iraqi officials said all the dead were civilians.
An American military spokesman insisted all of those killed were combatants. “Everyone who got shot was shooting at US troops at the time,” said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver. “It was an intense firefight.”
US troops detained 17 men suspected of helping Iranian terror networks fund operations in Iraq, a military statement said. There were no US casualties. Witnesses said US forces rolled into their neighborhood before dawn and opened fire without warning.
“At about 4 a.m., a big American convoy with tanks came and began to open fire on houses — bombing them,” said Basheer Ahmed, who lives in Sadr City’s Habibiya district. “What did we do? We didn’t even retaliate — there was no resistance.” According to Iraqi officials, the dead included three members of one family — a father, mother and son. Several women and children, along with two policemen, were among the wounded, they said.
The assault brought quick criticism from Maliki. “The Iraqi government totally rejects US military operations ... conducted without a pre-approval from the Iraqi military command,” Maliki said in a statement released by his office. “Anyone who breaches the military command orders will face investigation.”
Meanwhile, US forces found around 40 bodies, bound and bearing gunshot wounds, in a mass grave south of Fallujah, the military said yesterday. “A local Iraqi citizen’s tip led coalition forces to the site of a mass grave late Friday evening outside Ferris, approximately 35 kilometers south of Fallujah,” the military said in a statement. “Coalition forces uncovered 35 to 40 bodies at the site. The remains were bound and had gunshot wounds.” It was not immediately known who carried out the massacre or when the victims were killed.
In the murder case, the two American soldiers are accused of killing three Iraqis in separate incidents, then planting weapons on the victims’ remains, the military said in a statement. Fellow soldiers reported the alleged crimes, which took place between April and this month in the vicinity of Iskandariyah, 50 kilometers south of Baghdad, it said.
In another development, Maliki urged Sunni lawmakers to end their boycott of his Cabinet, insisting that the case of a Sunni minister accused of terrorism is a purely judicial matter. “I call on my brothers, the leaders of the Concord Front, to cancel their decision to boycott Cabinet meetings and to work through the judicial process to solve this problem,” Maliki said in a statement.
