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Civilians caught in crossfire in Iraq

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published July 22, 2006

BAGHDAD - Iraqi forces backed by a U.S. helicopter battled Sunni gunmen south of Baghdad on Friday, and at least 11 combatants died. U.S. troops killed five Iraqis - including two women and a child - in a separate exchange of fire.

An extended ban on vehicles held down violence Friday in Baghdad after one of the most violent weeks in the capital this year, but four people were wounded by a bomb outside a Sunni mosque, police said.

A U.S. Marine was killed in action Friday in western Iraq, the U.S. military said.

Also Friday, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East said that overall escalating sectarian violence in Baghdad had become a greater worry than the insurgency and that plans were being drawn up to move additional forces to the Iraqi capital.

"The situation with sectarian violence in Baghdad is very serious," said U.S. Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, the commander of the U.S. Central Command. "The country can deal with the insurgency better than it can with the sectarian violence, and it needs to move decisively against the sectarian violence now."

Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior U.S. commander in Iraq, had been meeting with Iraq's defense minister, Abdel Kader Jassem al-Obeidi, to hammer out a plan to improve security. The plan included the deployment in the Baghdad area of additional troops, Iraqi as well as American. The shifting of additional forces to the Baghdad area is expected to come at the expense of troop levels in other parts of the country. It is not clear whether the increased violence will prompt U.S. commanders to modify their longer-term plans for troop reductions.

The deadly firefight occurred in two mostly Shiite neighborhoods of Mahmoudiya, a town 20 miles south of Baghdad where 50 people were killed in a market this week in an attack by Sunni gunmen.

About 1:30 p.m. Friday, gunmen opened fire in two neighborhoods of Mahmoudiya and Iraqi security forces responded, Capt. Ibrahim Abdullah said. A U.S. military statement said 11 people were killed - five gunmen, three Iraqi soldiers and three police officers.

The civilian deaths came in an early morning raid in Baqubah, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, where American troops were looking for associates of al-Qaida in Iraq, the U.S. military said.

The Americans took fire from a rooftop and after evacuation orders were ignored a U.S. aircraft fired on the building. The bodies of two men, two women and a young girl were found in the rubble, the U.S. military said. They included two of the girl's aunts, an uncle and a grandfather, police said.

"We regret that civilians are hurt or killed while coalition forces search to rid Iraq of terrorism," the military said. "Terrorists continue to deliberately place innocent Iraqi women and children in danger by their actions and presence."

After the attack, neighbors milled about the wreckage of the concrete building, peering at shrapnel marks on the walls.

"I came running barefoot and saw the catastrophe," said a grizzled man wearing a red-and-white Arab headdress. Another man said: "Is this the democracy they promised us? If there is terrorism in the world, it is American terrorism."

A government committee formed to ease sectarian tensions plans to hold its first meeting today. The Supreme National Committee for Reconciliation and National Dialogue comprise about 30 members, including legislators, religious and tribal leaders, said Hassan al-Suneid.

Lawyers of soldier say rape confession was forced

Lawyers for Spc. James P. Barker, one of four U.S. soldiers charged with raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killing her and her family in Mahmoudiya, accused government interrogators on Friday of forcing a misleading confession from him during an intimidating interrogation. They also said the interrogators had failed to tape the eight-hour interview of the soldier though military regulations suggest doing so.

Information from the New York Times was used in this report.

[Last modified July 22, 2006, 00:52:15]