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Iraq: 15 killed as US forces 'take out' militiamen
Baghdad (AFP) April 21, 2008 US forces will "take out" anyone carrying weapons or firing rockets in Iraq, the military warned on Monday, while reporting that another 15 people had been killed in air strikes and firefights in east Baghdad. Those killed in a fresh bout of fighting in Baghdad bastions included what US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Steven Stover called "criminals" setting up rocket rails, carrying rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) or attacking US patrols with small arms fire. "Anyone with rockets or carrying weapons, we'll take them out," Stover told AFP, adding that civilians in Baghdad were bearing the brunt of the rocket and mortar attacks. In military parlance, the phrase "take out" generally means to kill or eliminate. At least 328 people have been killed in the fighting that has rocked Sadr City since late March when Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered his forces to disarm Shiite militiamen. The sprawling poverty-stricken township in east Baghdad is the stronghold of the Mahdi Army militia of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who at the weekend warned of "open war" if Iraqi and US forces continued to attack his loyalists. Stover said fighting on Monday erupted in Baghdad Jadida, which adjoins Sadr City, starting around 8.30 am (0530 GMT) when a US patrol came under attack with RPGs and small arms fire. US forces fired back, killing three "Special Groups" operatives, Stover said, referring to renegade members of Sadr's feared Mahdi Army militia which the US claims are being trained by Iranian covert agents to fight American forces in Iraq. At 10.20 am (0720 GMT), Stover said, two men carrying RPGs and an AK47 were killed in an air strike in Baghdad Jadida, while 40 minutes later a US helicopter strike killed two gunmen. At 12.10 (0910 GMT), an M1 tank fired a round at a truck carrying members of what he described as a rocket team, destroying the truck and an unknown number of people. A series of military statements on Monday, meanwhile, reported eight people killed on Sunday afternoon and evening in Sadr City, most of them hit by air strikes while they were said to be readying to fire rockets. "Where are most of the rocket and mortar attacks coming from? From Sadr City," Stover said. "We are not the aggressors. The Special Groups targeting civilians are the aggressors." Sadr sees the US military differently. In a statement about the visit of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice earlier in the day, Sadr said: "We demand that such visits of terrorist occupiers to our holy land be stopped." The US military has threatened to strike back if Sadr wages war. "If Sadr and Jaish al-Mahdi (Mahdi Army) become very aggressive, we've got enough combat power to take the fight to the enemy," said Major General Rick Lynch, commander of US forces in central Iraq. Related Links Iraq: The first technology war of the 21st century
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