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35 coalition troops, 170 Iraqis die in 3 days
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-04-08 08:25 US-led forces battled Sunni guerrillas in two
cities Wednesday and grappled with a radical Shi'ite uprising in a two-front war
that has killed at least 35 coalition soldiers and 170 Iraqis in three days.
The US military confirmed Wednesday that a dozen Marines had been killed the
previous day in a seven-hour battle in the Sunni Muslim city of Ramadi, 110
kilometres west of Baghdad.
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| U.S. Marines patrol outside Fallujah
Wednesday. [AP] | And coalition sources said a South African working for a British security
company had been killed in the southern Iraqi city of Kut when Shi'ite radicals
attacked the house he was living in with other contractors.
Another US soldier from the 1st Armored Division was killed when his vehicle
was attacked with a rocket-propelled grenade outside a police station in Baghdad
Wednesday, the US military said in a statement. The death raises to 15 the
number of US and coalition troops killed in the past two days, the statement
said.
The Ramadi incident was one of the costliest battles for US forces in Iraq
since the war that toppled Saddam Hussein began a year ago.
"Eleven Marines died while engaged with the anti-Iraqi forces for more than
seven hours; one died from wounds suffered during the fire fight,'' the US
military said in a statement.
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Masked members of Iraqi Shiite radical
leader Moqtada al-Sadr's Army of Mehdi militia guard al-Sadr's office in
Baghdad's Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City.
[AFP]
| Another US soldier was
killed in fighting north of Baghdad on Tuesday evening, bringing to 442 the
number of US troops killed in action in Iraq since the invasion last year.
Since Sunday, clashes across Iraq have killed 33 US troops, a Ukrainian
soldier and a Salvadoran soldier.
The US military launched a major operation this week to secure Ramadi and the
nearby city of Falluja, where four US private security guards were killed last
week and their bodies set ablaze and mutilated by a jubilant crowd of Iraqis.
Fierce fighting raged in both cities Wednesday.
In Ramadi a column of black smoke rose from the city centre and gunfire and
blasts echoed across the city. Streets appeared deserted except for masked
guerrillas with AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
Mosques broadcast calls for a holy war against the American troops.
In Falluja, dozens of Iraqis were killed -- doctors said at least 36 were
killed on Tuesday, and locals said the toll was much higher as many people were
unable to reach hospitals. One mosque was being used as a makeshift morgue.
Doctors said 25 of the dead were in a house destroyed by a blast. Locals said
it had been hit by a missile fired by a US helicopter. The US military said it
had no information on the incident.
"There had been enemy resistance and Marines have repeatedly repelled that
resistance as well as conducting raids against key targets in the heart of
Falluja city,'' Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of operations
for the US army in Iraq, told a news conference in Baghdad.
North of Baghdad, a US helicopter landed after being hit by gunfire. The US
army said there were no casualties.
Sadr: expel US occupiers
Elsewhere in Iraq, followers of the Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have
fought running battles with foreign troops in the southern cities of Nassiriya,
Amara, Kut and Kerbala in an uprising that has claimed more than 130 lives since
Sunday.
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| Supporters of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr
demonstrate in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood April 7, 2004.
[AP] | An aide to Sadr told a news conference that
some US soldiers had been captured in the fighting. "Some tribes have captured
some occupation forces on the streets,'' Qays al-Khazali told a news conference
in the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf.
Kimmitt said US-led forces would destroy Sadr's Mehdi Army militia and that
Sadr would be arrested. "In the central and southern regions of Iraq the
coalition and Iraqi security forces are conducting operations to destroy the
Mehdi Army,'' he said.
The uprising by Shi'ites raised fears in Washington that US forces, already
battling a Sunni insurgency, faced a Viet Nam-style quagmire as they try to
pacify the country ahead of the planned transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis on
June 30.
The head of Sadr's office in Kerbala was killed in fighting with Polish
troops in the city, local police spokesman Rahman Mashawi said.
Ukrainian troops pulled out of Kut Wednesday after clashes there in recent
days and regrouped in their base camp, the defence ministry in Kiev said. It
said the move was "on the request of US representatives in the civil
administration and with the objective to save soldiers' lives."
Bulgaria summoned ambassadors of the United States, Britain, Spain and Poland
to the foreign ministry Wednesday asking for back-up for 450 Bulgarian soldiers
stationed in Kerbala.
The base has come under attack several times by Shi'ite militiamen, and a
Bulgarian civilian truck driver was killed in an attack on a convoy in southern
Iraq on Tuesday.
Sadr has appealed to all Iraqis, whatever their religion, to help expel the
occupiers. "This insurrection shows that the Iraqi people are not satisfied with
the occupation and they will not accept oppression," he said in a statement on
Tuesday.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari, in London for talks with British
Prime Minister Tony Blair, said thousands more foreign troops might be needed to
maintain order.
US President George W. Bush vowed the campaign by Sadr's supporters would not
derail Washington's plans. "We will pass sovereignty on June 30,'' he told a
campaign rally in Arkansas on Tuesday. "We're not going to be intimidated by
thugs and assassins."
A US opinion poll released on Monday showed support for Bush's handling of
Iraq at a new low of 40 per cent, with 44 per cent wanting US troops withdrawn.
In Hawija, north of Baghdad, eight Iraqis were killed in clashes between US
troops and protesters who rallied in a show of support for guerrillas in Falluja
and Ramadi. The US army said three soldiers were wounded in the clashes.
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