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More gunbattles with soldiers in sadr city { October 24 2007 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/world/middleeast/24iraq.html?_r=1&ref=middleeast&oref=sloginhttp://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/world/middleeast/24iraq.html?_r=1&ref=middleeast&oref=slogin
October 24, 2007
Helicopter Fire Kills Iraqis, Days After Sadr City Battle
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
BAGHDAD, Oct. 23 — Gunfire from an American helicopter killed 11 people, including women and children, after it came under fire north of Baghdad on Tuesday, according to a statement by the military. The episode was the second this week in which multiple Iraqi deaths resulted from a United States combat action.
The Iraqi police and witnesses put the toll higher, at 16 dead, and recounted a confusing scene in which local people were trying to help a wounded man who was apparently an insurgent as an American helicopter buzzed overhead.
According to Mohanad Hamid Muhsin, a 14-year-old who was wounded in the leg, the insurgent fired a machine gun at a helicopter around sunrise in a rural area near the city of Tikrit. The helicopter unleashed a barrage of gunfire in return, hitting the man who had fired the machine gun, he said.
“The locals went to check if he was dead and gathered around him,” Mohanad said of the insurgent, “but the helicopter opened fire again and killed some of the locals and wounded others.” When another group tried to carry the wounded and dead to houses to provide first aid, Mohanad said, the helicopter shot at four houses, killing and wounding more people.
In its statement, the United States military said that “a known member of an I.E.D. cell was among the 11 killed during the multiple engagements,” using the abbreviation for improvised explosive device.
The statement said an additional four “military-age males” were among the dead and said that five women and one child were also killed. The statement said the helicopter had been fired at from a house.
“I lost two of my brothers and my sister, who was a college student,” Mohanad said in a telephone interview from a hospital in Tikrit where the wounded were taken.
A local police official, meanwhile, said that 16 people, including six women and three children, were killed and that an additional 14 were wounded.
The shooting took place two days after American soldiers killed 49 people in a gun battle on Sunday in Sadr City, the sprawling Shiite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad. The military said no civilians were killed, while a Shiite citizens’ council and other Shiite groups said innocent bystanders died. On Monday, Iraqi government and American military officials agreed to form a joint committee to investigate.
Also Tuesday, Sunni tribal sheiks who have allied with the United States played host to an improbable military parade, with a band and soldiers in spit-shined boots, down a main street in the city of Ramadi in Anbar Province, though with an extensive American military presence in the area.
The parade, which was led by children waving flowers and Iraqi flags, would have been unthinkable amid the insurgent violence in Ramadi a year ago, American commanders who attended said.
The sheiks’ movement, the Anbar Awakening Council, has used tribal ties to draw former insurgents into the government police force, while helping United States soldiers identify remaining militants. In Ramadi, United States patrols have not been targeted in the city since May, American commanders said.
The parade was a response to one held last year in Ramadi by the Mujahedeen Shura Council, an insurgent group linked to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown Sunni insurgent group that American intelligence officials say has foreign leadership.
The parade on Tuesday formally commemorated the end of the 40-day period of mourning after the death of Sheik Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi, the leader of the Anbar Awakening Council, who was killed shortly after meeting President Bush in Anbar in September. His brother, Sheik Ahmed Abu Risha, took over as leader of the group.
Sheik Abu Risha responded Tuesday to an audiotape of the Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, that was broadcast on Al Jazeera on Monday. The tape admonished Sunni Muslims in Iraq for allowing divisions within their ranks in the struggle against the United States, according to SITE, a group that monitors extremist Islamic groups.
“We invite bin Laden to tell us who his people are,” Mr. Abu Risha said. “Let them come out, and we will fight them. Here I am. I am willing to lead the fight.”
Ahmad Fadam contributed reporting from Baghdad, Qais Mizher from Ramadi and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Salahuddin.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
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