Baghdad, Iraq – A raging, day-long battle erupted in central Baghdad on Tuesday. Four Iraqi soldiers were killed, 16 U.S. soldiers were wounded and a U.S. helicopter was hit by ground fire as the second month of the massive security crackdown on the capital neared an end.
Sixty miles to the north, in the mostly Sunni city of Muqdadiyah, a woman with a suicide vest strapped beneath her black Muslim robe blew herself up in the midst of 200 Iraqi police recruits. The attack killed at least 16 men waiting to learn whether they had been hired.
The security crackdown, which began Feb. 14 and will see nearly 170,000 American forces in Iraq by the end of May, has curbed some sectarian attacks and assassinations in the capital. But violence continues to flare periodically in Baghdad and has risen markedly in nearby cities and towns.
The fierce fighting in central Baghdad shut down the Sunni-dominated Fadhil and Sheik Omar neighborhoods just after 7 a.m., the U.S. military said. After American and Iraqi troops came under fire during a routine search operation, helicopter gunships swooped in, engaging insurgents with machine gun fire.
Some Arab television stations reported an American helicopter was shot down in the fight, and they showed video of a charred piece of mechanical wreckage that was impossible to identify. The U.S. issued a statement late Tuesday saying an attack helicopter suffered damage from small-arms fire but returned to base.
Several blocks from the battle, a rocket slammed into a schoolyard basketball court, killing a 6-year-old boy. Police said it was a stray Katyusha rocket. At least 17 were wounded – 15 students and two teachers.
By day’s end, at least 52 people were killed or found dead nationwide in strife confined mainly to Sunni enclaves.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is visiting Japan, rejected an immediate U.S. troop withdrawal, as called for on Monday by his fellow Shiites in a huge demonstration in the holy cities of Kufa and Najaf.
“We see no need for a withdrawal timetable. We are working as fast as we can,” al-Maliki told reporters during his four-day trip to Japan, where he signed loan agreements for redevelopment projects in Iraq.
The U.S. military announced the deaths of four more soldiers – three killed by a roadside bomb and secondary explosion in southeastern Baghdad and a fourth in combat in Anbar province. All were killed Monday.
At least 3,285 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the war in 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians.
In Muqdadiyah, most of the victims of the suicide bomber had taken police exams just days earlier and were assembled to learn the results, said a policeman, who would not give his name because he was not authorized to talk with reporters. Dr. Abdul Salam al-Jibour at Muqdadiyah General Hospital said 33 in the group were wounded.
