BAGHDAD — Attack helicopters pumped rockets at gunmen holed up in office towers and apartment blocks Wednesday, as U.S. and Iraqi forces swept through a notorious Sunni insurgent enclave in the heart of Baghdad.
The U.S. military said the fighting on and around Haifa Street was part of a new offensive launched before dawn to disrupt illegal militias and bring the volatile area under the control of Iraqi security forces.
The attack began within hours after President Bush, in his State of the Union speech, urged Congress to get behind his plan to boost the number of troops and crack down on violence in Baghdad and other volatile areas of Iraq.
The low thud of mortar blasts rocked the capital for hours, and smoke billowed above Haifa Street, dubbed "Sniper Alley," which U.S. and Iraqi forces have struggled to tame. It was the second time this month that U.S. and Iraqi forces clashed with insurgents on the commercial and residential street just north of the Green Zone, which is home to the U.S. and British embassies as well as the Iraqi parliament.
Preparation
Iraqi officials said that the operation was not part of a planned security offensive for Baghdad but that it would prepare the way for a more concerted effort to clear out and hold troubled neighborhoods.
"What kind of security plan is this?" asked one terrified resident, who spent the morning in his home nearby. "They are destroying us, pounding an area less than one square kilometer with mortars, shells from helicopters and their tanks."
Residents accused the United States of unwittingly aiding Shiite Muslim militiamen accused of trying to force the mostly Sunni Muslim inhabitants from their homes, as part of a pattern of sectarian "cleansing" that is redrawing the map of the once largely integrated capital.
As many as 31 gunmen were killed and 35 detained Wednesday, including numerous foreign fighters, the Ministry of Defense said in a statement. The U.S. military confirmed seven arrests.
At least one U.S. soldier was killed by small-arms fire in central Baghdad, the military said, but it did not specify whether the death was related to the Haifa Street offensive.
The military also announced the deaths Tuesday of two Marines in combat in Al Anbar province, west of the capital, bringing the number of U.S. personnel killed since the start of the Iraq war in 2003 to 3,063, according to the website icasualties.org.
Urban battle
