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U.S. forces kill six militants in Baghdad battles
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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces fended off attacks from Shi'ite militiamen in Baghdad on Tuesday and killed six in fighting in and around the Sadr City slum, the U.S. military said.
The attacks seem to indicate some followers of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr are ignoring his call for a truce. The deaths brought the number of militants killed since a flare-up of violence on Sunday evening to 51.
"At 1:00 in the morning, we returned fire on two criminals who were firing at us. We killed one of them," spokesman for the U.S. military in Baghdad, Steven Stover, said.
An hour later militants fired on a U.S. patrol with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Sadr City.
"A Bradley infantry fighting vehicle returned fire, killing five of them. One U.S. soldier was wounded, not seriously. He was treated and returned to duty," the spokesman said.
Militants claiming allegiance to Sadr have stepped up attacks against U.S. forces in Sadr City under cover of blinding dust storms.
The strikes raise questions about the degree to which Sadr controls his fighters or is seeking to avoid confrontation with U.S. and government forces.
The storms have grounded U.S. Apache attack helicopters which hunt rocket and mortar teams, enabling fighters to fire salvoes of rockets at targets in Baghdad, including its heavily fortified Green Zone.
Four U.S. soldiers were killed in rocket or mortar attacks in the Iraqi capital on Monday, the military said.
Stover said U.S. troops recovered three 81 mm Iranian-made mortars on Tuesday. The U.S. accuses Iran of backing elements of the Sadrist militias, a charge Tehran denies.
U.S. and Iraqi troops have been locked in a month of fighting with militiamen since Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite, ordered an offensive in the southern oil city of Basra.
After early setbacks, the militiamen appear to have been driven from the streets in Basra. But fighting has continued in Baghdad, mostly around Sadr City.
(Editing by Robert Woodward)
