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U.S., Iraqi Forces Raid Shiite Militia

Iraqi and U.S. forces raided a Shiite militia stronghold in Baghdad Monday, triggering a gunbattle that left three people dead, while 12 others were killed elsewhere including five in a barbershop that was sprayed with gunfire.

Besides, 10 people were killed in a suicide bombing at a funeral in Saddam Hussein's hometown and three U.S. soldiers died in a roadside bomb late Sunday. No further details were released.

In Baghdad, sounds of heavy gunfire and explosions rattled the Sadr City district about 1 a.m. Monday and persisted for more than an hour. Iraqi government television and aides to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said U.S. aircraft attacked buildings in the area.

"We condemn this cowardly, terrorist attack conducted by the U.S. forces in Sadr City," said Falah Shanshal, a lawmaker aligned to al-Sadr. "We demand the government take necessary measures to stop such unjustified aggression and we demand an investigation," he said.

The U.S. military said in a statement the fighting started when Iraqi and U.S. forces raided the area to catch extremists suspected of running torture cells in Sadr City.

In other developments:

  • U.S. soldiers accused of raping and murdering a 14-year-old Iraqi girl in the town of Mahmoudiya last March drank alcohol and hit golf balls before the attack, and one of them grilled chicken wings afterward, an investigator told a U.S. military hearing Monday, citing a soldier's sworn statement.
  • The Bush administration continues to insist Iraq is not heading toward a civil war, even as some senators and military leaders have expressed concerns that such a conflict may be inevitable. "It would be, really, erroneous to say that the Iraqis are somehow making a choice for civil war, or, I think, even sliding into civil war," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday on ABC.
  • An influential Republican senator sounded more pessimistic and questioned whether the U.S. should keep sending more troops to Iraq. Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., appearing on CBS' Face the Nation, said we cannot "ask them to do the things that we're asking them to do in the middle of a civil war, and that's where it's headed."
  • Police fired in the air Monday to disperse hundreds of stone-throwing demonstrators in Darbandikhan in northern Iraq, injuring at least 11 people, an official of the provincial government, Othman Haji Mahmoud, said. The protesters were demanding better living conditions such as electricity and fuel, the second such protest in two days in the area near Sulaimaniyah city.

    The fighting in Baghdad is a serious development in a city volatile with sectarian violence between Shiite and Sunni extremists, and points to the growing strength of al-Sadr's anti-U.S. militia, the Mahdi Army.

    The top U.S. commander in the Middle East, Gen. John Abizaid, warned recently that if left unchecked, militias could become "a state within a state" like Lebanon's Hezbollah to challenge the authority of Iraq's fledgling unity government.

    President Jalal Talabani told reporters Monday that he has written to al-Sadr "to control those elements of the Mahdi Army" who take "illegal actions." He said he also told Army Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, that "it is in nobody's interest to have confrontations with the Sadrists."

    Talabani rejected suggestions that the country was sliding toward civil war.

    "Sunnis and Shiites are intermingled and their leaders are opposed (to civil war). There are clans that have both Sunni and Shiite members, how can they turn against each other?" he said.

    The U.S. military recently reinforced its troop strength in the city to try to reclaim the streets from militias. Casey told reporters he discussed with Talabani a security plan to bring "fundamental change to the security situation in Baghdad."

    "There is a comprehensive plan to change the situation significantly prior to Ramadan," which begins late September, he said. He did not give details.

    Col. Hassan Chaloub, police chief of Sadr City, said three people including a woman and a 3-year-old girl were killed and 12 were injured in Monday's fighting. He said three cars and three houses were destroyed in fire.

    The barbershop killings occurred a little after noon in the eastern New Baghdad neighborhood, said police Lt. Ali Abbas. The gunmen, driving past the shop in two sedans, opened fire, killing four customers and the owner, he said.

    In Mosul, gunmen opened fire on a taxi Monday, killing two policemen inside, said police Brig. Saeed al-Jubouri. He said two other policemen in the taxi were injured.

    In other violence Monday, three civilians were killed and 15 injured in crossfire during clashes in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, after insurgents attacked a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol.

    Two bombs exploded on Palestine Street, a major shopping area of Baghdad, injuring 10 people, including a senior police officer. Two bodies, handcuffed and shot in the head, were also found in western Baghdad, said police Capt. Jamil Hussein.

    The attack on the mourners occurred Sunday evening in Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad. The bomber mingled among the crowd in a funeral hall and detonated an explosive belt, killing ten people, police said.

    Police Capt. Laith Hamid, who gave the casualty figure, said the mourners were attending services for the father of a local council member, who was killed in the attack.

    The bombing was the latest in a series of attacks across northern Iraq in recent days that have tested the capabilities of Iraq's U.S.-trained security forces.

    On Sunday, Iraqi authorities in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, lifted a partial curfew that was imposed two days earlier in the eastern part of the city after police repulsed a series of insurgent attacks in which a police colonel was killed.

    The Defense Ministry said security forces had arrested 62 people in a crackdown across northern Iraq after the street battles.

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