- The ceasefire called by the radical Shia cleric Moqtada
al-Sadr appeared to be crumbling last night following two days of violent
clashes in the Baghdad suburb of Sadr City.
-
- At least 36 Iraqis and one US soldier were killed, pushing
the total number of US military casualties in Iraq over 1,000.
-
- Fighting erupted on Monday afternoon between Mr Sadr's
supporters and US troops, fizzling out at dawn yesterday before resuming
at 7am. It then raged for most of the day.
-
- Yesterday afternoon US tanks had taken up positions in
the heart of the impoverished Shia slum, and next to the police station.
Bradley fighting vehicles were deployed at roundabouts, their guns pointing
in all directions.
-
- Further down the road, close to Mr Sadr's office, young
men in civilian clothes could be seen uncoiling lengths of blue electrical
wire - apparently to attach to roadside bombs. Large holes had been gouged
in the asphalt.
-
- Locals said the clashes had broken out after a provocative
American patrol on Monday deep into Sadr City, a stronghold of Mr Sadr's
Mahdi army militia.
-
- 'The Americans tried to arrest some people from the Mahdi
army," Abu Hussein, a 20-year-old shopkeeper told the Guardian. "They
come here, and start randomly arresting and randomly shooting. Then the
Mahdi army fires back.
-
- "We have agreed to put our weapons away. But the
Americans still try and arrest us."
-
- The latest fighting, in which 203 people were injured,
according to hospital officials, comes after a period of relative calm.
Last week Mr Sadr called on his followers to observe a ceasefire and announced
that he planned to enter politics. But he only agreed to call off his three-week
uprising following the intervention of Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani,
Iraq's most important Shia cleric.
-
- Yesterday, the US military said it came under attack
numerous times and that at least one soldier had been killed and two injured
while they waited for a team to defuse a roadside bomb.
-
- "We just kept coming under fire," said Captain
Brian O'Malley.
-
- The number of US troops who have died reached 999, with
three civilians working for the Pentagon also killed, taking the toll to
more than 1,000.
-
- All but 138 US personnel were killed after combat operations
had been declared over.
-
- The youngest to die was 18 and the oldest, 59, according
to an Associated Press analysis of Department of Defense statistics; 97%
were men; about two dozen were women. Although more than 600 were white,
others were black, Hispanic, Asian and American Indian.
-
- * The US army is preparing to abandon a contract with
Halliburton, the company formerly run by the vice-president, Dick Cheney,
which has been investigated for allegedly overcharging it.
-
- The contract to provide housing, food and other services
to US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, potentially worth $13bn (£7.2bn),
is expected to be broken into smaller parts and opened to competitive bids
in the next few months.
-
- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1299626,00.html
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