Baghdad, Iraq – Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki condemned a U.S. raid Saturday in Baghdad’s Shiite Sadr City slum – a politically sensitive district for him – in which American troops searching for Iranian-linked militants sparked a firefight that left 26 Iraqis dead.
The U.S. military said all those killed in the fighting were gunmen, some of them firing from behind civilian cars. But residents said eight civilians were killed in their homes, and they angrily accused American troops of firing wildly during the predawn assault.
Sadr City is the Iraqi capital’s largest Shiite neighborhood – home to 2.5 million people – making U.S. raids there potentially embarrassing for al-Maliki’s Shiite-led government. The district is also the stronghold of the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a one-time al-Maliki ally.
Al-Maliki last year banned military operations in Sadr City without his approval after complaints from his Shiite political allies. The ban frustrated U.S. commanders pushing for a crackdown on the Mahdi Army, blamed for sectarian killings. Al-Maliki later agreed that no area of the capital was off-limits after President Bush ordered reinforcements to Iraq as part of the Baghdad security operation.
Meanwhile, in Muqdadiyah, 60 miles 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. The U.S. military also said that a U.S. soldier was killed and three others were wounded Friday when an armor-piercing bomb hit their combat patrol in southern Baghdad.
