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  • IRAQ: Mehdi Army clashes with Iraqi soldiers in Diwaniya; while unidentified sniper kills 6 and wounds 7 people in Ramadi

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IRAQ: Mehdi Army clashes with Iraqi soldiers in Diwaniya; while unidentified sniper kills 6 and wounds 7 people in Ramadi

Shi'ite militiamen led by radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr clashed with Iraqi soldiers on Monday (August 28). The Defence Ministry, local officials and Sadr's Mehdi Army gave conflicting accounts of battles overnight and into the day in Diwaniya, a normally placid provincial capital, 180 km (110 miles) south of Baghdad. A Defence Ministry spokesman said 20 Iraqi soldiers were killed along with 50 unidentified "gunmen" who had stormed police stations after dark on Sunday (August 27). A local leader of the Mehdi Army insisted only two of his men had been killed. An agreement brokered in the nearby city of Najaf between Sadr and the Diwaniya governor brought an edgy calm by nightfall after hours of mortar, rocket and machine-gun fire. Sadr, a member of the Shi'ite Alliance, has staged numerous armed revolts against U.S., British and Iraqi troops and has been accused by Sunni leaders of running death squads. Meanwhile, an unidentified sniper shot dead six people and wounded seven others in the town of Ramadi, 100 km (62 miles) west of Baghdad on Monday (August 28), a witness said. Corpses were prepared for burial at the local mortuary and then carried in coffins in Ramadi's streets. Ramadi is the capital of the restive Anbar province, a centre of the Sunni insurgency since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Sunni insurgents long posed the main threat to U.S. efforts to install a stable elected government but militia violence against Sunnis and among Shi'ites is now killing more people.

ITN Source | August 29, 2006Watch more videos from ITN Source

Tags:. .accused. .staged. .miles. .efforts. .august











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