"Karbala civilians killed" in US-Iraqi forces raid (2nd Roundup)

Jul 27, 2007, 15:31 GMT

Baghdad - Contradictory statements emerged after clashes Friday between Mahdi Army militants and joint US-Iraqi forces in Karbala, some 100 kilometres south of Baghdad.

Medical, police and Mahdi Army sources said 10 civilians including six from one family were killed and 28, including children, were wounded during a US raid on Karbala early Friday.

But a US military statement said the US and Iraqi forces had targeted only a high-level Mahdi Army leader, killing 17 Mahdi militants in the process - but with no civilian casualties.

Rassak al-Mussawi, a spokesman for the Mahdi Army, which is loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, said three militiamen were killed in the clashes and seven wounded.

'US soldiers, who used warplanes and Hummer vehicles, raided the house of Mahdi Army official Hamza Matroud in Askari neighbourhood, three kilometres west of Karbala,' al-Musawi told the independent Voices of Iraq news agency.

Al-Musawi did not say whether Matroud had been arrested, but noted that 'this attack indicates that the US forces wanted to shake security in the city.'

Witnesses in Karbala said further fighting erupted between the militiamen and Iraqi soldiers, with casualties on both sides and among civilians, after the US forces withdrew from the area.

The death toll in Thursday's car bomb blast in central Baghdad's Karrada district increased to 60 Friday, with 94 wounded, Iraqi Government military spokesman Qassem Atta said.

The predominantly Shiite neighbourhood has repeatedly seen attacks. On Monday, three car bombs went off consecutively in the district, killing at least 12 people and wounding 20.

The US military meanwhile said that Iraqi forces and US special advisors had detained a high-level rogue Mahdi Army commander in western Karbala.

The suspect was detained during a raid that took place without incident. Two other suspects were also arrested, the US military said in a statement.

While preparing to leave the location, however, Iraqi and US forces came under fire from three separate locations by militants using small arms, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

Iraqi and US forces said they killed five insurgents by defending themselves with well-aimed fire as suspected rogue Mahdi Army militants fired on a helicopter assisting with the operation.

US forces used precision aerial strikes, killing approximately a dozen insurgents killed. There were no Iraqi civilians were present in the area at the time of the strike, the US military said.

In another development, Karbala governor Uqeil al-Khazaali said unidentified gunmen attacked his house in Islah neighbourhood in southern Karbala on Friday morning and clashed with his bodyguards, Voices of Iraq reported. However, no casualties were reported.

In other news, the US military confirmed Friday that a US soldier had died Thursday as a result of injuries sustained in an explosion near his vehicle during operations in Diyala province, 57 kilometres north of Baghdad.

On Thursday the military had said five US soldiers were killed across Iraq this week while one died in a non-combat related incident.