US battle with Shia militia as 28 killed in Iraq

IRAQ: US and Iraqi forces fought Shia militiamen in Baghdad during a raid on a suspected death squad yesterday in the latest…

IRAQ: US and Iraqi forces fought Shia militiamen in Baghdad during a raid on a suspected death squad yesterday in the latest bid to stem the sectarian violence that US military leaders say could lead to civil war.

At least 28 people were killed and 64 injured in attacks around the country, including in Samarra, north of Baghdad, where a suicide bomber killed nine people and wounded 10 outside a police station.

In Baghdad, a police source said two people were killed and 18 wounded during two hours of fighting in Sadr City, a stronghold of radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose supporters are part of the ruling Shia coalition.

The US military said it backed up Iraqi forces in a raid to detain "individuals involved in punishment and torture cell activities".

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The US has boosted its troop levels in Baghdad to prevent further escalation of sectarian violence, which is claiming around 100 lives every day and sapping confidence in Iraq's Shia-led government. It has vowed to confront the armed militias blamed for fanning tensions, but must tread carefully as some of these groups have close ties to parties in the government.

US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday that the battle for Baghdad was key to restoring security in Iraq.

Defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld has extended the tour of about 3,700 troops from the 172nd Stryker Brigade, based in Mosul, which began arriving in Baghdad on Sunday.

Gen George Casey, the top US officer in Iraq, told a news conference yesterday that US and Iraqi troops would drive militants and death squads from the capital and improve security by Ramadan, which falls in late September.

The beefed-up forces are an admission that Operation Forward Together, a security crackdown in the capital driven by what the Iraqi government has said is about 50,000 US-trained Iraqi forces, had failed to ease violence. Washington hopes the reinforcements will turn the tide and win the government a breathing space, which it can use to focus on reconciliation efforts.

In other violence, police said gunmen killed at least six soldiers and wounded 15 when they fired on Iraqi troops at a checkpoint near the northern town of Baquba, and a bomb hidden in a market in Khan Bani Saad, near Baquba, killed a civilian and wounded three policemen.

In Falluja, west of Baghdad, six civilians were killed by a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol and four civilians died when their minibus struck a roadside bomb near Khalis, 80km north of Baghdad. Four Iraqi soldiers were shot dead at a checkpoint in Muqdadiya, 90km northeast of Baghdad.

Prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, who had put forward a reconciliation plan and urged that armed militias surrender their weapons, has also had to contend with Iraqi outrage over the behaviour of some US troops in their country.

In a case that has caused particular anger in Iraq, a US military court near Baghdad airport heard how US soldiers took turns to rape a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and murder her and her family in Mahmudiya in March.

The investigation, the fifth involving serious crimes being investigated by the US military in Iraq, prompted Mr Maliki to call for a review of immunity for foreign troops from Iraqi prosecution.

The court heard from a special agent who interviewed one of the accused, Specialist James Barker, who told him that he had taken turns with two other soldiers in raping the girl before she was shot and her body set alight.