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Battles rage in, around Baghdad

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 11, 2007

BAGHDAD - A raging, daylong battle erupted in central Baghdad on Tuesday, the close of the second month of the huge security crackdown on the capital.

Four Iraqi soldiers were killed, 16 U.S. soldiers were wounded and a U.S. helicopter was hit by ground fire.

Sixty miles to the north, in the mostly Sunni city of Muqdadiyah, a woman with a suicide vest strapped beneath her Muslim robe blew herself up in the midst of 200 Iraqi police recruits. The attack killed at least 16 men waiting to learn if they had been hired.

The security crackdown, which began Feb. 14 and will see nearly 170,000 American forces in Iraq by the end of May, has curbed some sectarian attacks and assassinations in the capital. But violence continues to flare periodically in Baghdad and has risen markedly in nearby cities and towns.

The fierce fighting in central Baghdad shut down the Sunni-dominated Fadhil and Sheik Omar neighborhoods just after 7 a.m., the U.S. military said. After American and Iraqi troops came under fire during a routine search operation, helicopter gunships swooped in, engaging insurgents with machine gun fire.

Some Arab television stations reported that a U.S. helicopter was shot down in the fight and showed video of a charred piece of mechanical wreckage that was impossible to identify. The U.S. issued a statement late Tuesday saying an attack helicopter suffered damage from small-arms fire but returned to base.

Several blocks from the battle, a rocket slammed into a schoolyard basketball court, killing a 6-year-old boy. Children's backpacks and books were open on classroom desks, covered with shattered glass and debris. Blood was pooled on the dusty tile floor.

Police said that it was a stray Katyusha rocket that dug into the asphalt playground and that at least 17 were wounded - 15 students and two teachers.

The resumption of violence was in stunning contrast to Monday, when a 24-hour driving ban left the capital eerily quiet on the fourth anniversary of its capture by American forces.

But just hours after the ban was lifted before dawn Tuesday, artillery fire echoed across the city. By day's end, at least 52 people were killed or found dead nationwide in strife confined mainly to Sunni enclaves.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is visiting Japan, rejected an immediate U.S. troop withdrawal, as called for on Monday by his fellow Shiites in a huge demonstration in the holy cities of Kufa and Najaf. The demonstrations were ordered up by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose political support put Maliki in office.

"We see no need for a withdrawal timetable. We are working as fast as we can," Maliki said.

[Last modified April 11, 2007, 02:25:59]