Mortars rain on Green Zone during Iraq sandstorm
Wathiq Khuzaie / Getty Images
BAGHDAD — Under the cover of a thick sandstorm Sunday, suspected Shiite militiamen unleashed a barrage of rocket or mortar fire at Baghdad's fortified Green Zone and attacked U.S. and Iraqi soldiers.
The U.S. military said this morning that its forces had killed at least 38 gunmen in a series of clashes since Sunday, some of the fiercest fighting in days in Shiite-dominated parts of the capital.
They included 22 fighters killed with tank and gun fire, when a large group swarmed a checkpoint manned by U.S. and Iraqi soldiers Sunday, the military said in a statement. At least one other checkpoint, a combat outpost and several patrols were also attacked with small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, the military said.
Hospital officials in Sadr City, the vast Shiite district that has been the focus of recent fighting, said they had received 24 dead and more than 100 wounded since 8 a.m. Sunday. The victims included women and children, they said. The hospitals regard all patients as civilians unless they arrive in military uniform, making it impossible to determine how many of the victims may have been fighters.
At least two other Iraqis were killed Sunday and 25 wounded by shells that apparently missed the Green Zone and landed in surrounding neighborhoods, police said. There were no reports of casualties inside the enclave, which houses the U.S. Embassy and Iraqi government offices.
Militiamen take advantage of the lack of U.S. air cover in poor weather to set up and fire their projectiles. As the dust storm cleared this morning, another volley of explosions sent Green Zone residents running for cover.
Skirmishing has continued despite an appeal Friday by influential Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr to end the bloodletting that has claimed hundreds of lives since the Iraqi government began a crackdown against militiamen last month. Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militia has been a main target of the crackdown, said that his recent threat of "open war" was aimed only at U.S.-led foreign forces, not Iraqi troops.
The number of rounds fired at the Green Zone had dropped in recent weeks, since U.S. and Iraqi forces moved into the southern third of Sadr City to prevent militants from using its teeming streets to launch the projectiles. But commanders acknowledge that won't stop the firing of shells from other militia strongholds in the capital.
