IRAQ: U.S. and Iraqi troops kill 30 militants in fierce Diwaniya battle while hundreds of Iraqi officers suffer food poisoning in Numaniya

U.S. and Iraqi troops killed 30 Shi'ite militiamen in fierce street battles in the southern city of Diwaniya on Sunday (October 8), the U.S. military said. People were ordered to stay indoors during the day after explosions and the rattle of machine-gun fire shook the city's central districts for more than five hours overnight. "Everything has been destroyed. I have a family and you can see the shop. All my things have been damaged. Nothing is left. And I support the Mehdi Army and Sayyed Moqtada (al-Sadr) and let the Americans come here again... (as in: we'll show them)." Karim Jawad Kadhim, a resident of Dawaniya said. The military said an M1A2 Abrams tank was severely damaged in the clashes that erupted after militants opened fire with machine-guns and rocket-propelled grenades on U.S. and Iraqi forces trying to arrest a "high-value" target. The fighting underlined the chronic insecurity gripping Iraq, where an estimated 100 people die violently every day. Diwaniya's southern districts are a stronghold for the Mehdi Army militia of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose movement is a key player in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government of national unity. A Mehdi Army official, who declined to be named, denied any involvement in Sunday's fighting and blamed rogue gunmen. He said Sadr had issued orders to the Mehdi Army "not to attack anybody, including the Americans". Another Mehdi Army official denied that 30 militants had been killed and said just three people were wounded. The fighting in Diwaniya 180 km (115 miles) south of Baghdad came a day after Iraqi forces arrested 184 people and seized hundreds of weapons in a security crackdown in the restive oil city of Kirkuk, which has experienced an explosion of violence in recent weeks. The curfew was lifted on Sunday morning. A Reuters reporter in Diwaniya heard machine-gun fire from 1 a.m. (2200 GMT) to 6 a.m. (0300 GMT) as well as the sound of U.S. helicopters. Residents said they saw the tank ablaze. Diwaniya was quiet during the day, but there was a heavy U.S. military presence until early evening, when residents said they withdrew to their base. The curfew was lifted for two hours at dusk as people broke their day-long Ramadan fast. U.S. and Iraqi troops have launched numerous operations in recent weeks against the Mehdi Army in their hunt for sectarian death squads accused of carrying out indiscriminate killings. Meanwhile, at least seven policemen died and hundreds of others fell ill after suffering food poisoning on Sunday evening in the town of Numaniya, south of Baghdad, police sources at the base said on Monday (October 9). It was not clear if the poisoning at an Iraqi military base was deliberate but police sources said they arrested four cooks on Monday (October 9) suspected of tampering with the food. But the spokesman for the commander of the Iraqi armed forces denied anyone had died. Lieutenant-Colonel Hasan Nima at the base said the policemen, from the Interior Ministry's 4th division, became ill only minutes after the meal and insisted at least 1,350 of the 2,000 policemen at the base were hospitalised. A local Health Ministry official said a team was sent out to investigate the cause of the illness. The policemen, nearly all Shi'ite Muslims from southern Iraq, blamed several people most notably a Sunni contractor providing food for the military base where the police were "re-training". But Qasim and other Shi'ites did not say they believed the poisoning had sectarian motives.

ITN Source | October 9, 2006

Tags:. .sunni. .meanwhile. .division. .broke. .quiet