BAGHDAD — Fighting in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City killed 23 Iraqis on Wednesday, hospital officials said, and the U.S. military reported five troop deaths as April showed signs of becoming the worst month for American forces in Iraq since September.
At least 11 of the latest deaths occurred when mortar shells landed in residential neighborhoods. Men rushed wounded children to overcrowded emergency rooms in Sadr City hospitals, running because of a ban on all vehicular traffic.
In some parts of Sadr City, masked militiamen carrying machine guns and grenade launchers remained on the streets.
Hospital officials have put the death toll in the Baghdad district at more than 70 since Sunday, but it was not clear whether those figures included militia fighters.
Thousands of Sadr City residents have fled for the relative safety of other neighborhoods. Prices in local markets were soaring as supplies dwindled, a result of suppliers' inability to bring in goods. Iraqi and U.S. forces appeared to be penetrating deeper into the district, one local journalist said.
There were no signs that Prime Minister Nouri Maliki was pulling back on his offensive against Shiite militias, which has sparked fighting between Iraqi and U.S. forces and militiamen loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr. Maliki's deadline for fighters to hand in heavy weapons passed Tuesday, but the latest clashes showed that rocket-propelled grenades, mortars shells, and rockets remained in militia hands.
For part of the day, Baghdad was quieter than in recent days because of a curfew imposed to prevent clashes and protests marking the anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein on April 9, 2003.
Sadr had called for a huge march in Baghdad to mark the anniversary of Hussein's ouster and to protest the U.S. presence and Maliki's offensive. The cleric says the offensive, which began March 25 in the southern city of Basra, is targeting his Mahdi Army and is a ploy to cripple the Sadr movement before provincial elections planned for October.
His fighters have risen up against Iraqi and U.S. forces, virtually ending a cease-fire that Sadr announced in August and that was credited with bringing a sharp decline in violence nationwide.
Though U.S. and Iraqi officials maintain that they are targeting "criminal" elements or so-called special groups that did not abide by Sadr's truce, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker acknowledged Wednesday that the Basra offensive had drawn in others.
