Iraqi troops face off with Sadr followers

By Noah Barkin

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi troops clashed with Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's militia on Friday in what was described as some of the heaviest fighting in Baghdad for weeks.

Amid blinding dust storms, Sadr's Mehdi Army fighters attacked Iraqi army positions in east Baghdad's Sadr City slum, but U.S. forces said Iraqi troops stood their ground.

An Iraqi security source described the fighting as among the heaviest since confrontation erupted there in late March. The source said seven people had died in combat lasting four to five hours. A nearby market was in flames.

Ali Bustan, head of the health directorate for east Baghdad, said 132 wounded were brought to Sadr City's two hospitals by nightfall.

"The Iraqi Army still hold their positions in Sadr City," U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Stover said, quoting a dispatch from U.S. troops at the front. "They are currently under attack ... but are organizing a counter-attack."

Sadr City, home to 2 million people, has seen fighting for three weeks that has trapped many residents in their homes.

In the southern city of Basra, where the government launched a botched crackdown on Sadr's militia in March, government troops surrounded the office of the cleric's followers and prevented them from attending weekly prayers.

The battle in Sadr City is being seen as a key test for Iraq's army after the Basra crackdown sparked violent clashes across southern Iraq and in Baghdad. After that crackdown, 1,300 soldiers and police were sacked for refusing to fight.

U.S. military spokesman Stover said an Iraqi army unit in Sadr City had abandoned their post on Tuesday despite an American officer's pleas that they stay and fight.

"There was a company that took themselves out of the line," he said of Tuesday's incident. "They were holding an area that they were responsible for and they left."

Baghdad security spokesman Qassim al-Moussawi said only three soldiers had refused to fight.

The fresh fighting has fuelled concerns that a period of declining violence credited to last year's "surge" in U.S. troop levels is coming to an end, just as the American reinforcements are returning home.

OFFICE SEALED OFF

Friday saw government troops seal off the Sadr office in Basra, located in an old Olympic committee building from the Saddam Hussein-era.

Interior Ministry spokesman Major-General Abdul-Karim Khalaf said Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had ordered troops to take possession of government buildings in Basra within 48 hours.