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7 us soldiers killed 25 wounded in baghdad { April 4 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49405-2004Apr4.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49405-2004Apr4.html
7 U.S. Soldiers Killed, 24 Wounded in Baghdad
Followers of Cleric Sadr Clash With Soldiers
By Sewell Chan and Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, April 4, 2004; 7:05 PM
BAGHDAD, April 5--Seven U.S. soldiers were killed and more than 24 wounded in clashes in a mostly Shiite neighborhood of the Iraqi capital, an Army spokesman said early Monday, as a week of protests and violence escalated across the country.
The deadly clash in Sadr City, a sprawling slum in the eastern part of the capital, came hours after supporters of Moqtada Sadr, a fiery, young anti-American cleric, fought Sunday with a Spanish-led force at a military base near the Shiite holy city of Najaf.
Two soldiers, an American and a Salvadoran, were killed in the clash in the town of Kufa, about 90 miles south of Baghdad. At least 20 protesters were killed and more than 100 were injured in Kufa, where witnesses said the fighting involved gunfire, mortars and an AH-64 Apache attack helicopter.
In the capital, Master Sgt. David A. Melancon of the 1st Armored Division said in a statement Monday that fighting began when "the militia of Moqtada Sadr's army -- Jaysh Mahdi or Mahdi Army -- attempted to interfere with security in Baghdad, intimidate Iraqi citizens and place them in danger. Specifically, the militia attempted to occupy and gain control of police stations and government buildings."
Militia members attacked soldiers and Iraqi law enforcement officers with small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, according to Melancon. The U.S. and Iraqi forces, he added, "prevented this effort and reestablished security in Baghdad at the cost of seven U.S. soldiers killed and more than two dozen wounded."
Coordinated protests by Sadr supporters also were reported in Nasiriyah and other cities.
Elsewhere in Iraq, news services reported that two U.S. Marines from the 1st Marine Division were killed in Anbar Province, an area that extends west from the capital to the Jordanian border and includes the restive city of Fallujah, but few details were released. One Marine was killed Saturday, the other died Sunday, the Associated Press reported.
AP also reported that a bomb exploded Sunday near an Iraqi police checkpoint in Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, killing three and wounding one.
The clash in Kufa, Sadr's home base, came after authorities detained a senior aide to charismatic Shiite cleric. The fighting also followed a week of protests and violence since the U.S.-led occupation authority ordered the closing of Sadr's weekly newspaper, al-Hawza, for printing inflammatory articles.
Sadr, 30, delivered a sermon in Kufa on Friday calling on supporters to challenge the occupation.
Abu Haider Ghalib Garawi, a leader of the Mahdi Army -- a self-styled militia Sadr formed last year -- said the cleric had not called for violence in his sermon and attributed the violent protests in Kufa to frustration with the U.S.-led occupation.
"There is no more patience," he said. "We cannot guarantee the behavior of the wise people and of the ordinary people."
At a news conference in the Iraqi capital on Sunday, L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator for Iraq, said U.S.-led forces and Iraqi security would respond strongly to any violent challenge.
"For the past 11 months, Iraq has been on the path to democracy and freedom -- freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of the press," Bremer said. "Those freedoms must be exercised peacefully. This morning, a group of people in Najaf have crossed the line and moved to violence. . . . This will not be tolerated by the coalition, this will not be tolerated by the Iraqi people, and this will not be tolerated by the Iraqi security forces."
The violence in Kufa involved protesters loyal to Sadr and a Spanish-led security force, which includes soldiers from El Salvador and other Central American countries. (The Spanish Defense Ministry in Madrid said its earlier report that four Salvadoran soldiers had been killed in Kufa was incorrect.)
The newly elected government of Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has promised to fulfill a campaign pledge to bring home the country's 1,300 troops by June 30 unless the United Nations is given control over the occupation.
Sadr's supporters were marching on a Spanish-led garrison when the fighting broke out. A spokesman for the Spanish headquarters in nearby Diwaniyah, Commander Carlos Herradon, told the AP that the protesters opened fire first. But protesters who gathered at a Kufa mosque after the fighting subsided said they had returned fire after occupation soldiers took up firing positions on the roof of a nearby hospital and began shooting into the crowd.
"The cowardly Spanish forces were waiting inside the hospital and shooting from the hospital roof on unarmed people," said Alaa Sadri, who said he came to Kufa from Baghdad and identified himself as a member of Sadr's Mahdi Army. "Thank God the reply was so violent. . . . This revolution will not calm down until the USA goes out of Iraq. Now the resistance has started."
"They should accede to the demands of Sayyid Sadr," Sadri added, using an honorific that indicates that a person is descended from the prophet Muhammad.
By early afternoon, after Sadr had issued a statement calling on the protesters to withdraw, an Apache helicopter continued to circle over the scene.
A witness said two occupation soldiers who appeared to have been beaten were taken into the Kufa mosque that serves as Sadr's headquarters. An aide to the cleric said there were no prisoners at the mosque.
Sunday's protests were sparked by reports that Mustapha Yacoubi, an aide to Sadr, had been arrested. In the capital, Mowaffak Rubaie, a Shiite member of Iraq's Governing Council, said Yacoubi was detained for questioning in the death of Abdul-Majid Khoie -- a Shiite cleric who had returned from exile after the war and was hacked to death by an angry mob at the shrine of Imam Ali last year.
Protests and violence involving Sadr's supporters have been increasing since the closing of the cleric's newspaper a week ago. A Kufa police chief was killed in violent clashes Friday night. On Saturday, about 5,000 members of Mahdi Army marched in Baghdad's Sadr City -- the mostly Shiite slum named for Sadr's revered father, who was killed by Iraq's ousted government in 1999.
Demonstrations by Sadr's supporters in the capital Sunday were largely peaceful to start. Protesters demanded that U.S.-led forces release Yacoubi and reopen Sadr's newspaper.
Sheik Amjad Saadi, a cleric who supports Sadr, insisted the cleric's searing Friday sermon in Kufa was not a call to violence against Americans. "Moqtada Sadr did not ask for that," he said. "We are good Muslims and we go by the holy Koran, which says that if you are agressed upon by others than you should strike back."
The crowd in Baghdad, mostly consisting of young and middle-aged men, chanted, "We are all soldiers of the Mahdi Army." The demonstrators also shouted, "Today is peaceful. Tomorrow will be warlike."
Bremer also announced the appointment of a defense minister, Ali Allawi, and a director general for the new Iraqi Nation Intelligence Service, Mohammed Abdulah Mohammed Shehwani.
Vick reported from Kufa. Special correspondent Saad Sarhan in Kufa also contributed to this report.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
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