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Major battle on Hafia street in Bagdhad.
Hundreds of U.S. and Iraqi troops battled with insurgents in a stronghold of the Sunni insurgency in central Baghdad Tuesday.The firefight began before dawn and followed two days of violence in the neighborhood that left as many as 50 insurgents dead. The U.S. and Iraqi troops came under attack by snipers, mortar rounds, and small arms fire. By midday Tuesday (4 a.m. ET), the U.S. military sent in fixed-wing aircraft and Apache attack helicopters to support the ground forces. U.S. military sources said the insurgent group included elements from the Saddam Hussein regime, foreign fighters, and members of al Qaeda in Iraq. They said the group was waging a sophisticated, coordinated battle, and was fighting against 400 U.S. troops and 500 Iraqi soldiers. Casualty figures were difficult to determine while the battle continued to rage, but the Iraqi army said nine of its troops and 23 insurgents had been killed. U.S. military sources on the ground said between 30 and 50 insurgents had been killed and wounded. The violence along Haifa Street began Saturday after Iraqi police trying to recover bodies dumped near a cemetery were attacked and withdrew, according to an Interior Ministry official. The Iraqi army, which controls the area, requested backup from the U.S. military and a gunbattle ensued, the official said. At least 11 insurgents were killed in Saturday's clashes and several others detained. On Sunday eight Iraqi soldiers were killed and six others were wounded when they ran out of ammunition during a firefight with insurgents. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Saturday that Iraq's armed forces were set for an assault on Baghdad to take out militias and rogue security forces. And in a different story in the same article: Plane crash north of Baghdad kills 30 A plane carrying Turkish workers crashed Tuesday near an airport in Balad, Iraq -- north of Baghdad -- killing 30 and injuring two others, according to Turkey's Foreign Ministry. The plane, operated by a company based in Moldova, went down in heavy fog about 2 1/2 kilometers (1.5 miles) northwest of Balad, the ministry said. It had departed from Adana, Turkey, around 6 a.m. (7 a.m. Baghdad time) and crashed about six hours later. Posted by: 3dc 2007-01-09 |
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