Keep off bomb-strewn streets of Sadr City, says Iraq
Iraqi authorities ordered residents off the streets of Baghdad's Shia militia bastion Sadr City on Saturday, warning they are littered with bombs, after a night of fighting that killed 13 people.
The order came soon after the authorities partially lifted a vehicle ban that had been imposed two weeks ago amid fierce clashes in Sadr City between the Mahdi Army militia of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and US and Iraqi forces.
"Groups of people have planted roadside bombs on the majority of the roads of Sadr City," Baghdad military command said in a statement.
"For the protection of our citizens and media personnel, we are warning people to stay off the streets until they have been cleared by the security forces," it said.
A US military statement listed the dead in the overnight 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.
Residents showed an AFP photographer a house in the Jamila sector of Sadr City which had been hit during what they said was an air strike.
Neighbours said that two small children and their parents were killed and another five family members wounded in the strike.
Hospital officials said women and children were among those killed and wounded but declined to give a breakdown.
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