US military: US forces kill 8 Shiite militants

BAGHDAD --

About 75 people were wounded in Friday's clashes in the Ubaydi neighborhood and Baghdad's embattled Sadr City district, Iraqi health officials said Saturday.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have been locked in street battles with Shiite militias since late March in Sadr City, a slum of 2.5 million people and the base of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

The U.S. military said eight militants were killed in the fighting, including a sniper and a triggerman accused of staging armor-piercing roadside bombs in Sadr City and the adjacent Ubaydi area. U.S. forces used aircraft and an Abrams battle tank in Friday's attack, the military said.

Several vehicles and buildings were destroyed in the clashes, police said.

The American military also announced Saturday that a U.S. soldier died of wounds sustained in a roadside bomb that struck the soldier's vehicle during a combat patrol in eastern Baghdad on Friday. Saturday's announcement comes a day after the military said another roadside bomb attack in eastern Baghdad killed a U.S. soldier.

As clashes escalate in Sadr City, Shiite clerics have offered sharply different visions in the showdown between government forces and Shiite militias. One cleric predicted Friday that armed groups will be crushed in Baghdad, and another called for Iraq's prime minister to be prosecuted for crimes against his people.

The contrasting views showed the complexities and risks in the 5-week-old crackdown by the Iraqi government and U.S. forces on Shiite militia factions. The clashes have brought deep rifts among Iraq's Shiite majority and have pulled U.S. troops into difficult urban combat.

But Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, shows no indication of easing the pressure on militia groups, including the powerful Mahdi Army led by al-Sadr.

Iraqi and U.S. forces are pressing deeper into Sadr City, and al-Maliki has been seeking to increase leverage on Iran, which is accused of training and arming some Shiite militia groups. Iran denies the claims.

A five-member Iraqi delegation was sent to Tehran this week to try to choke off suspected Iranian aid to militiamen.

Meanwhile, two civilians were killed and seven others wounded in Baghdad's central Salihiyah district Friday evening after a mortar round apparently fired by Shiite extremists toward the U.S.-protected Green Zone fell short.

Shiite militiamen have used Sadr City as a base to fire barrages of missiles and mortar rounds at the Green Zone, which houses the U.S. Embassy and much of the Iraqi government.