US and Iraqi forces clamped down on flashpoint districts of Baghdad on Friday, focusing on insurgent and militia hotbeds as a joint operation to restore order in the capital lumbered into action. “We are still flowing forces into the city,” US Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Garver said, as both military and civilian officials warned reporters not to expect instant results from the operation. The US military has begun deploying the first of 21,500 reinforcements into Baghdad in the latest in a series of moves to regain control of a city plagued by insurgent gangs and sectarian death squads.In southern Iraq, meanwhile, a British soldier was killed and three were wounded on Friday when their patrol was blasted by a roadside bomb outside Basra, the Ministry of Defence in London said. In a separate setback for the coalition, US helicopter gunships killed eight Kurdish policemen during an operation targeting an alleged Al Qaeda bomb factory in Mosul.
In Karbala, a cleric representing top Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called for a “peaceful demonstration” on Monday to mark the first anniversary of the bombing of a Samarra shrine that triggered the sectarian bloodshed. Eleven people were kidnapped and murdered early on Friday in the village of Mahawil, 80 kilometres south of Baghdad. Three US soldiers also died in Al-Anbar province on Thursday.