BAGHDAD, April 12: Security forces killed 13 people in clashes in Sadr City overnight, leaving parts of the east Baghdad militia bastion under siege despite the lifting on Saturday of a two-week blockade.

A US military statement listed the dead in the battles as two snipers, two “criminals” firing rocket-propelled grenades, six gunmen wielding machine guns and automatic weapons, and three men placing roadside bombs.

The US and Iraqi forces hit back with small-arms fire, a Hellfire missile fired from an unmanned aircraft and artillery shells blasted from a M1A2 Abrams tank, the statement said.

The fighting erupted at around 9:00 pm (1800 GMT) in Sadr City, a sprawling district of east Baghdad controlled by the Mahdi Army militia, the statement said.

Hospital officials said women and children were among those killed and wounded but declined to give a breakdown.

Residents of Sadr City said sporadic fighting continued through the night but died down after daybreak.

An official in the office of government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said that a two-week vehicle ban in Sadr City had been eased.

“The curfew was lifted generally in Sadr City from Saturday morning, but it still applies in some areas where security measures are in place,” the official said, asking not to be named.

Residents said the main road into Sadr City remained closed and major thoroughfares were blocked by roadside bombs aimed at US military vehicles.

Motorists were instead using sidestreets to zig-zag their way through the township, residents said.

The areas where the fighting had occurred also remained no-go zones. US and Iraqi forces have been battling militiamen in Sadr City and other areas of east Baghdad since Sunday, killing around 90 people.

Tensions have been further inflamed by the killing of senior Sadr aide Riyad al-Nuri on Friday in an attack carried out in broad daylight after the prayers in Najaf.

Sadr has called for three days of mourning in all his movement’s offices, while a symbolic funeral procession for Nuri was held in Sadr City on Saturday morning.

The US statement said Friday night’s clashes began when a security force convoy was attacked “by multiple roadside bombs, and small-arms fire from adjacent high-rise buildings.” Fighting back, security forces killed two snipers and two people firing rocket-propelled grenades from a building “where soldiers were taking RPG and machine gun fire.” At the same time, soldiers who were establishing a checkpoint came under small-arms, sniper and machine-gun fire as well as RPG attack after their vehicles were hit by a total of six roadside bombs.

A fierce firefight ensued in which four militants were killed, the statement said.

Soldiers then came under small-arms fire from another nearby building and US forces in the Abrams tank fired two 122mm rounds killing another two people.

About an hour later, it said, an unmanned aerial vehicle spotted three people planting roadside bombs.—AFP