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More than 30 killed in street battles in Baghdad’s Sadr City; Tariq Aziz’s trial starts | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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An Iraqi man grieves for a relative killed in clashes in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq, April 29, 2008 (AP)


An Iraqi man grieves for a relative killed in clashes in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq, April 29, 2008 (AP)

An Iraqi man grieves for a relative killed in clashes in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq, April 29, 2008 (AP)

BAGHDAD (Agencies) – Shiite militants ambushed a U.S. patrol in Baghdad’s embattled Sadr City district on Tuesday and more than two dozen people were killed in the fighting, a U.S. military spokesman and Iraqi officials said. Six American soldiers were wounded.

The clashes broke out at 9:30 a.m. after U.S. troops were attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns, spokesman Lt. Col. Steve Stover said. As the troops were leaving the area, a vehicle was hit with two roadside bombs, Stover said.

Officials at the Imam Ali and al-Sadr general hospitals said about 25 people had died, with several dozen wounded. The officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to release the information, said most of the victims were civilians.

They also said several buildings in the neighborhood had been demolished and rescue crews were searching through the rubble.

Stover said U.S. forces targeted gunmen in the area with a guided multiple-launch rocket system, which fires high-explosive warheads weighing 90 kilograms (200 pounds). He said 28 extremists were killed.

“We have every right to defend ourselves,” he said. “The problem is they’re using houses, rooftops and alleyways (as cover).”

Earlier Tuesday, eight people were killed and 67 wounded in the sprawling eastern district that is home to 2.5 million residents. Shiite militiamen and U.S. and Iraqi forces have been locked in increasingly violent street battles there during the past month.

A showdown between the Iraqi government and the Mahdi Army militia, led by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, has increasingly drawn U.S. forces into battle.

Tuesday’s attack occurred along a road on which the U.S. military is putting up a concrete barrier to try to cut off the militants’ ability to move freely into the rest of Baghdad and hamper their ability to fire rockets and mortars at the heavily fortified Green Zone that houses Iraq’s government and many foreign embassies.

AP Television News footage showed children running for cover behind blast walls amid gunshots. Men helped carry several blood-soaked injured people onto stretchers to a local emergency hospital. Outside the hospital, the dead were placed inside plain wooden coffins.

Also in Baghdad, a senior government official was killed in a roadside bombing in the north of the city.

Dhia Jodi Jaber, director general at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, was hit by a roadside bomb as he left his home on Tuesday morning, the ministry’s spokesman Abdullah al-Lami said.

Insurgents frequently target governmental officials and institutions in a bid to disrupt the government’s work.

In the southern city of Basra, where the government began its crackdown on Shiite militias on March 25, Iraqi military commander Lt. Gen. Mohan al-Fireji announced the discovery of a huge weapons cache containing roadside bombs, mortar launchers and Iranian-made weapons.

More details on the amount of weapons or how authorities knew they were Iranian-made were not immediately available. Meanwhile, the trial of Tariq Aziz, one of Saddam Hussein’s best-known lieutenants, opened in Baghdad on Tuesday.

Aziz is one of eight defendants facing charges in a case dating back to 1992 when the government executed 42 merchants for war-profiteering. Others include Saddam’s half brother and the dictator’s cousin known as “Chemical Ali,” who faces a pending death sentence in another case.

Aziz has denied the accusations, his Italian lawyer said. Aziz was No. 25 on the U.S. most-wanted list after the invasion. He surrendered to American forces on April 25, 2003, and has been in custody ever since.

Elsewhere, a female suicide bomber blew herself up at a bus stop near Muqdadiyah, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad, killing one and wounding five people, police said.

In other developments, the Iraqi defense ministry said Serbia had agreed to write off $3 billion in Iraq’s foreign debt.

An Iraqi boy peers through rubble after an overnight airstrike in eastern Baghdad, Iraq, April 29, 2008 (AP)

An Iraqi boy peers through rubble after an overnight airstrike in eastern Baghdad, Iraq, April 29, 2008 (AP)

An undated file picture of former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz (EPA)

An undated file picture of former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz (EPA)