Fifty militants killed in Baghdad clash
US and Iraqi soldiers, backed by American warplanes, killed 50 suspected insurgents in an battle today in central Baghdad, the Iraqi defense ministry said.
US jet fighters and helicopters flashed through the skies over the Haifa Street area just north of the heavily fortified Green Zone, where the battle raged through the morning and much of the afternoon.
Witnesses said they had seen the aircraft firing into the combat zone, and explosions rang out over the city.
Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Shaker, a defence ministry spokesman, said 21 militants were captured, including seven foreign Arabs – three Syrians, a Sudanese and three others.
“Today’s operation was designed to purge Haifa Street and nearby neighbourhoods from terrorists,” Shaker said.
Police said the clashes began when gunmen attacked Iraqi army checkpoints, and that Iraqi soldiers called for US military help.
Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Iraqi forces had decided to wipe out “terrorist hide-outs” in the area once and for all.
“God willing, Haifa Street will never threaten the Iraqi people again,” he said.
Al-Dabbagh also said followers of Saddam Hussein were to blame for the violence.
“This would never have happened were it not for some groups who provided safe havens for these terrorists. And as everyone knows, the former Baathists provided safe haven and logistics for them to destabilise Iraq,” he said.
Haifa Street has long been Sunni insurgent territory and housed many senior Baath Party members and officials during Saddam’s rule.
A US military spokesman said American and Iraqi forces launched raids to capture multiple targets, disrupt insurgent activity and restore Iraqi Security Forces control of North Haifa Street.
“This area has been subject to insurgent activity, which has repeatedly disrupted Iraqi Security Force operations in central Baghdad,” Lt Col Scott Bleichwehl said in a statement.
Troops were receiving small arms fire, rocket-propelled grenade and indirect fire attacks during the operation, the statement said.
“Anyone who conducts activities outside the rule of law will be subject to the consequences,” Rear Adm Mark Fox, another US military spokesman, said at a news conference with al-Dabbagh.
The battle came less than 48 hours before President Bush was due to deliver a major policy speech outlining changes in US strategy in Iraq. He was expected to announce an increase of up to 20,000 additional US troops.
Al-Dabbagh said the Iraqi government supported such a troop surge.
“The goal is to protect Baghdad and other areas. If this is going to be achieved by an increase in friendly coalition forces, we have no objection and we support this,” al-Dabbagh told reporters.
In other violence today, a policeman was wounded when a roadside bomb hit his patrol car in downtown Baghdad, police said.
Another roadside bomb missed an Iraqi army patrol in Mosul but wounded an eight-year-old girl nearby, Iraqi Col Eidan al-Jubouri said. Mosul is 225 miles north-west of Baghdad.
