BAGHDAD, Dec 1: Iraqi troops, backed by US attack helicopters, fought militants in central Baghdad on Friday. Two Apache helicopters, firing anti-missile flares, swooped over Fadhil neighbourhood, a Sunni insurgent stronghold in one of the oldest parts of the capital, amid the slow thump of heavy machinegun fire, witnesses said.
On the ground US and Iraqi troops, raiding the area's narrow alleyways in a hunt for insurgent hideouts, clashed with gunmen who killed one Iraqi soldier and wounded five, an Interior Ministry official said.
The Defence Ministry said 43 people were detained and a house was found that appeared to be a guerrilla field hospital.
While Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki received strong backing from US President George W. Bush on Thursday, he remains under pressure to get tougher with Sunni insurgents and Shia militias who have created virtual no-go zones in the capital and are blamed for thousands of deaths.
Data from interior ministry officials showed a 44 percent leap in civilian casualties in November compared with October.
The increase, to 1,850 deaths, was matched by a 45 percent risein the number of civilian deaths.
They included the 202 people killed in last week's multiple car bombing in the Shia stronghold of Sadr city, the worst attack since the US invasion in 2003.
The violence has its epicentre in Baghdad, despite thousands of US troops being poured into the capital to help the Iraqi army regain control of the streets from sectarian death squads through search and clear operations.
The US military said Friday’s operation by the 9th Iraqi Army Division and US soldiers in Fadhil was aimed at “capturing and denying a safe haven to terrorist forces”.
“The targets of these raids are believed to be regularly killing innocent Iraqis and have an active campaign designed to disrupt the peace and stability of the region,” it said.
RAID: A local resident,
Abu Omar al-Qaisi, said Iraqi troops and armed men in civilian clothes had entered the area at dawn, sparking clashes in which several people were killed. He said he had helped carry eight bodies into a local mosque.
At midday, four US armoured Humvee vehicles had entered his street and directed machinegun fire at a local secondary school, he said. Shooting could be heard in the background. By late afternoon, a relative calm had returned.—Reuters
