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(Galatians 4:16)

Iranian ambassador denounces US operation in Baghdad

BAGHDAD - Iran's ambassador to Iraq on Saturday denounced U.S. military operations in Baghdad's Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City, saying they had led to the deaths of innocent people and threatened to aggravate an already tense situation.The comments by Ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qomi came after police and hospital officials reported that 12 people had died in overnight clashes in Sadr City.U.S. and Iraqi troops backed by air power have largely blocked off the southern section of the sprawling district in a bid to prevent Shiite militia fighters led by the Mahdi Army of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr from firing rockets at the U.S.-protected Green Zone.Iraqi troops also kept up the pressure on Shiite militants in the southern city of Basra, where they fanned out through a Mahdi Army stronghold.The chief security commander in Basra, Gen. Mohan al-Fireji, said Iraqi forces were making a new push into the Hayaniyah area and had chased gunmen off a main street, with many abandoning their weapons. Several others were detained, he said, without providing numbers.Qomi expressed support for the Iraqi-led Basra offensive, which was launched on March 25, but warned that "the insistence of the Americans to lay siege" on Sadr City has led to the killing of several innocent people and "is a mistake."U.S. and Iraqi troops clamped down on Sadr City after fighting spread and attacks against the Green Zone intensified in the wake of the offensive. Four Americans were killed in near daily shelling."We criticize the measures taken by the U.S. forces. Shelling cities and surrounding people will aggravate the situation and make things worse," Qomi said during a news conference at the Iranian Embassy."The U.S. insistence on continuing this military action is a mistake and it will lead to negative results that the Iraqi government will have to shoulder the responsibility for," he added.In Sadr City's general hospital, officials said 71 people were admitted for treatment of injuries received in the overnight fighting and 12 bodies were received.The fighting came amid reports that Iraqi troops backed by U.S. forces were trying to recapture a position in the district abandoned a day ago by a company of Iraqi soldiers.Security forces in the area also have come under repeated attack by militants trying to prevent the construction of a concrete wall through the district.The wall — a concrete barrier of varying height up to about 12 feet — is being built along a main street dividing the southern portion of Sadr City from the northern, where Mahdi Army fighters are concentrated.American commanders hope the wall will hamper the fighters' ability to fire rockets and mortars at the Green Zone, the central Baghdad district where government offices and the U.S. Embassy are located.Militants have used mortars and rockets of various calibers in attacks on the Green Zone.The U.S. military said one of its attack helicopters located and hit a mortar crew in Sadr City at 3:30 a.m. Saturday, killing two gunmen and destroying the weapon.The near-daily clashes in Sadr City since then have fueled worries over a total breakdown of a truce called last year by al-Sadr, with fears of wider violence.The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki also kept up the pressure on al-Sadr's followers in Basra, launching an operation early Saturday aimed at clearing militants from the Hayaniyah district, a Mahdi Army stronghold in Iraq's oil capital. British artillery and U.S. warplanes were supporting the Iraqi army operation, which met minimal resistance, military spokesman Maj. Tom Holloway said.He said that as a show of force British gunners fired a barrage of shells into an empty area near Hayaniyah and U.S. warplanes bombed it."This was intended to demonstrate the firepower available to the Iraqi forces," Holloway said.A Sadrist spokesman, Aqil al-Bahadili, also said the group had evacuated their Basra offices under orders by al-Sadr's main office in the holy city of Najaf. The cleric has maintained a cease-fire despite continuing military operations.Clashes also were reported near Nasiriyah, a city about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad. Authorities imposed a curfew on the town of Suq al-Shiyoukh after a firefight in which one militant was killed and six policemen were wounded.Meanwhile, the U.S. military said an American soldier was killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol in Salahuddin province. At least 4,038 members of the U.S. military have now died since the war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.Elsewhere in Iraq, at least five people died and 18 were injured in separate bombings in the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk and the Diyala provincial capital of Baqouba.The attacks capped a violent week that has raised concerns that suspected Sunni insurgents are regrouping in the north. U.S. and Iraqi troops have stepped up security operations in Mosul, believed to be one of the last urban strongholds of al-Qaida in Iraq. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080419/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=Ajy7ihZxi28UiU49snGn9HBI2ocA
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