- BAGHDAD -- Coffins were borne
through the fetid streets of Sadr City yesterday after the sprawling Shi'ite
slum, which welcomed American troops with open arms a year ago, rose up
in the heaviest fighting since the war.
-
- At least 22 Iraqis and eight American soldiers were killed
in six hours of running clashes at the weekend, but black-clad militiamen
still guarded roadblocks late yesterday, their control of the streets undiminished.
-
- The Shi'ites of Sadr City, Baghdad's largest and poorest
slum, suffered brutal repression at the hands of Saddam Hussein. Many cheered
US forces in the streets when they arrived in the area last April. Yet
when American Abrams tanks and Humvee armoured cars entered the area on
Saturday night, they had to fight their way street by street as Shi'ite
militiamen fired from rooftops and windows.
-
- US forces were responding to a direct challenge to their
authority mounted by Moqtada al-Sadr, a radical Shi'ite leader. Hours after
he ordered his followers to "terrorise" their American "enemy",
gunmen from his militia, the Army of the Mahdi, occupied police stations
and public buildings across Sadr City.
-
- Iraq's new police force, armed and trained by America,
offered no resistance, shattering hopes that they can be trusted with the
country's security after the planned transfer of power to a provisional
Iraqi government on June 30.
-
- By about 4pm on Saturday, the Shi'ite private army had
effectively seized control of a huge section of Baghdad, occupied by a
third of the capital's six million people.
-
- Sadr City's tumbledown houses and scruffy street markets
are his crucial support base. Formerly known as Saddam City, the slum was
renamed in memory of the firebrand cleric's father, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr,
a revered ayatollah who was murdered by the previous regime in 1999.
-
- America's response to this flagrant challenge came almost
immediately. Soon after 4pm, Jabar Juma, 37, saw a column of 10 tanks,
supported by helicopters overhead, rolling through Sadr City's main street.
They made for the office on al-Falah street where the Mahdi army has its
headquarters.
-
- Mr Juma said the militiamen opened fire. He watched as
one US Humvee was hit, probably by a rocket-propelled grenade, and burst
into flames. "The US tanks were shooting everywhere. They were firing
along the streets and at the office of Sadr," he said.
-
- Another witness, Karim Hashim Abdul Hussein, 40, saw
dozens of militiamen firing from the rooftops. The Mahdi army was banned
and disarmed by an official decree last year, but the gunmen in black uniforms
and green headbands brandished rocket-propelled grenade launchers and AK47
rifles.
-
- They kept up a sustained fire on American soldiers in
the streets below. "The US tanks were driving very fast and shooting
randomly. I saw them crush one civilian car," said Mr Hussein. "I
saw helicopters flying low over us. It was chaos." In at least one
location, the resistance was so fierce that US forces were compelled to
call for air support. An Apache helicopter gunship fired rockets at a target
near the centre of Sadr City.
-
- American firepower took a heavy toll of the militiamen.
Mr Hussein saw two bodies lying in the street. But the fighting still raged
after darkness fell at 8pm. It was several hours later before US forces
regained control of the occupied buildings. An official statement said
coalition forces "re-established security in Baghdad", but at
the cost of seven American soldiers killed and 24 wounded.
-
- One more US soldier died of his injuries yesterday morning.
Hospitals in Sadr City reported that between 22 and 28 Iraqis were killed
and more than 100 wounded.
-
- Yet the Mahdi army was still on the streets yesterday.
About 10 armed militiamen guarded a makeshift roadblock on al-Falah street,
a few hundred yards from their headquarters, which is also Sadr's office.
-
- A crowd of about 200 had gathered outside this shabby
building, waving the black, green and red flags of the Shi'ite strand of
Islam.
-
- About half a mile away, a dozen US tanks were deployed
around Roundabout 55, blocking one of the main routes into Sadr City. When
the tanks moved through the streets, people responded with defiant chants
of "Long live Sadr".
-
- Last April, the people of Sadr City endured brutal attacks
from remnants of Saddam's Fedayeen units. The former regime's fanatical
fighters were taking revenge for the area's support for the US invaders.
Twelve months later, the situation has been transformed. People in the
streets, many of whom cowered inside their homes as the fighting raged
outside, vented their anger at the Americans.
-
- "What have we done? Why have they attacked us?"
asked Mr Hussein. "Is this the democracy they brought us? Jihad should
be declared against the Americans, otherwise they will do this again."
-
- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/0
4/06/wirq106.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/04/06/ixnewstop.html
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