Troops Surround Iraq Flashpoint
Hundreds of U.S. and Iraqi troops on Monday surrounded the turbulent city of Fallujah, preparing for a major operation against insurgents code named "Vigilant Resolve." Violence around Iraq killed at least 11 troops in a day's time.
CBS News' Lisa Barron reports the move comes after last Wednesday's brutal slaying of four American contractors. U.S. commanders have been promising a massive campaign to restore security to one of the most violent cities in the country.
Some 1,200 Marines and two battalions of Iraqi security forces were poised to enter the city in a raid to capture suspected insurgents, officials said. They would not say when the sweep would begin.
Meanwhile, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq declared a radical Shiite cleric an "outlaw" after his supporters rioted in Baghdad and four other cities in fighting that killed at least 52 Iraqis, eight U.S. troops and a Salvadoran soldier.
Two other U.S. troops were killed elsewhere Sunday, and a Marine was killed on Monday, bringing the U.S. death toll in Iraq to at least 613.
The fiercest battle took place Sunday in the streets of Sadr City, Baghdad's largest Shiite neighborhood, where black-garbed Shiite militiamen fired from rooftops and behind buildings at U.S. troops, killing the eight Americans. At least 30 Iraqis were killed and more than 110 wounded in the fighting, doctors said.
Violence broke out Monday morning in another Shiite neighborhood of the capital, al-Shula, where followers of the cleric clashed with a U.S. patrol. An American armored vehicle was seen burning, and an Iraqi man was seen running off with a heavy machine gun apparently taken from the vehicle. A U.S. helicopter hovered overhead. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
In other developments:
The insurgency that has plagued U.S. troops in Iraq for months has been led by Sunni Muslims. But Sunday's clashes in Baghdad and three other cities threatened to open a dangerous new front: a confrontation with Iraq's powerful Shiite Muslim majority, which has until now largely avoided violence with the Americans.
Sunday's riots — which wounded hundreds in Baghdad, Najaf, Nasiriyah and Amarah — were ignited by the arrest of an aide to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, on charges of killing a rival cleric.
Al-Sadr has demanded an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, and his followers have protested against U.S.-backed local officials in several towns in the south in previous months.
While Al-Sadr does not hold widespread support among Iraq's Shiites, some young seminary students and poor Shiites like his anti-U.S. stance and admired his late father, a Shiite religious leader gunned down by suspected Saddam agents in 1999.
U.S. troops moved into Baghdad's Sadr City — named after Muqtada's father — after militiamen ambushed a U.S. patrol in the neighborhood, said Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of the Army's 1st Armored Division.
More troops streamed into the neighborhood — up to 1,000 at one point — fighting sporadic gunbattles with more than 500 militiamen, Dempsey said. The fighting ended after a column of tanks moved in.
Monday morning, U.S. tanks were parked in one of the neighborhood's main markets.
During a street protest by some 5,000 people Sunday near the Shiite holy city of Najaf, al-Sadr supporters opened fire on the base of Spanish troops, sparking a battle that lasted several hours. A Salvadoran soldier was killed died and 22 Iraqis were killed, and at least nine other soldiers and more than 200 Iraqis were wounded, said officials.
Followers of al-Sadr also took over the offices of the governor in the southern city of Basra.
L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq, declared al-Sadr an "outlaw" who threatens Iraq's security.
"Effectively he is attempting to establish his authority in the place of the legitimate authority. We will not tolerate this. We will reassert the law and order which the Iraqi people expect," Bremer said.
Bremer did not say if U.S. authorities would move to arrest al-Sadr, but the declaration stepped up the confrontation with the 30-year-old firebrand cleric, who fiercely opposes the U.S. occupation and is backed by a militia known as the "Al-Mahdi Army."
Al-Sadr issued a statement later Sunday calling off street protests, but he also called on followers to "do what you see fit in your provinces. Strike terror in the heart of your enemy … We can no longer be silent in the face of their abuses."