- BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Heavy
fighting erupted between U.S. troops and Shi'ite militiamen in Baghdad's
Sadr City slum on Monday night and American AC-130 aircraft pounded suspected
rebel positions, witnesses said.
-
- There was no immediate word on casualties. The attack
on Sadr City came after the U.S. military said it had retaken control of
the city of Samarra, part of a major offensive designed to crush insurgent
strongholds.
-
- "I hear explosions. AC-130 planes were firing,"
a resident of Sadr City told Reuters by telephone.
-
- The vast slum of more than two million people is the
Baghdad stronghold of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose followers
have staged two rebellions against the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq.
-
- U.S. and Iraqi government forces want to crush insurgents
in Baghdad and several other cities ahead of elections scheduled for January.
-
- - Reporting by Michael Georgy, editing by Scott McDonald
-
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