Baghdad violence spirals higher despite clampdown

By Ahmed Rasheed and Wisam Mohammed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Twenty-three people were killed and 83 injured in Baghdad's Shi'ite slum of Sadr City on Wednesday, security sources said, despite vehicle bans aimed at preventing unrest from spreading on the fifth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad.

Up to 73 people have died in Sadr City since Sunday in battles between black-masked militia loyal to cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and U.S. and Iraqi troops.

The upsurge in fighting comes as the top U.S. officials in Iraq testified in Washington that they opposed setting a timetable to withdraw troops from the 5-year-old war.

"The floor of the hospital is covered with the blood of children," said Dr Qasim al-Mudalla, manager of the Imam Ali hospital in Sadr City, where he said four children and two women were among 11 dead bodies brought in on Wednesday.

"What is the world doing? They have seen the blood of our children and are doing nothing."

Other parts of Baghdad were quiet, with streets clear of traffic because of a one-day vehicle ban in the capital for the anniversary of the day U.S. troops rolled into the capital, deposing President Saddam Hussein.

Shops, government offices, schools and universities were shut and residents were allowed out only on foot.

Sadr had called a mass demonstration against the United States for the anniversary, but postponed it saying he feared for his followers' safety.

Many Iraqis spoke of the anniversary with bitterness. Retired army officer Salim Hussein said the past five years had yielded nothing but "blood, bombs, curfews and in-fighting."

"The government is totally incapable of providing security," he said, walking near the square where U.S. forces toppled Saddam's statue on April 9, 2003.

President Jalal Talabani, however, hailed the anniversary in a televised address as a day to be celebrated.

"April 9 will enter history as the day the most arrogant dictatorship Mesopotamia has ever witnessed was deposed, the fall of a political regime that ... left behind mass graves that contained hundred thousands of innocents," he said.

U.S. President George W. Bush, who is due to give a speech on Iraq on Thursday, spoke to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki by telephone. Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Bush expressed support for Maliki's crackdown on militia.

U.S. DEATHS

Maliki launched operations against Sadr's militia last month in the southern city of Basra and fighting has spread to Baghdad, where the cleric's Mehdi Army has clashed fiercely with both U.S. and Iraqi troops.