U.S. Clashes With Militia in Baghdad

04/30/2007

By KIRK SEMPLE
NY Times
Published: April 30, 2007


BAGHDAD, April 29 — Militiamen loyal to the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr clashed with American forces in northern Baghdad on Sunday, an Interior Ministry official said, the latest in a series of indications that the militia might be emerging from two months of self-imposed dormancy.

Go to Complete Coverage » On the orders of Mr. Sadr, the militia, known as the Mahdi Army, has remained largely underground since the intensified security plan for Baghdad took effect in mid-February. But a steady increase in the number of corpses recovered from the streets in recent weeks, and sporadic clashes between Mahdi fighters and government forces, have suggested a possible resurgence of the militia.

Its return could significantly complicate the American-led effort to tame violence in the capital because it would split the attention of American and Iraqi forces, already struggling to subdue the Sunni Arab insurgency and interrupt its campaign of vehicle bombings against Shiite targets.

The circumstances of the latest fighting remained unclear late Sunday.

The Interior Ministry official said American soldiers and Mahdi militiamen exchanged heavy gunfire near a prominent Shiite shrine in the Shiite neighborhood of Kadhimiya, and that two American Humvees had burst into flames. The ministry official offered no explanation for the clashes.

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