seruriermarshal
05-12-2004, 04:00 AM
Up to 25 militiamen killed in coalition operation in Karbala - military
KARBALA, Iraq (AFP) - Between nine and 25 militiamen were killed in clashes with US forces overnight in the holy Iraqi city of Karbala, according to US military and local hospital sources.
AFP/File Photo
A US military official in Baghdad said up to 25 militiamen, understood to be members of Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi Army, died in the fighting, while seven US soldiers were wounded, four of them slightly.
Earlier the director of a hospital in Karbala, Hassan Nasrallah, said, "Nine militiamen were killed and seven people, including two Iranian pilgrims, were injured during the clashes which were in the centre of the city."
Heavy and light shooting ricocheted around the area all night and access to the city centre was sealed off on Wednesday morning by coalition roadblocks.
"I could not leave the house because of the shooting," 30-year-old civil servant Hashem Salman, who lives within the part of the city sealed off by coalition forces, told AFP by telephone.
Fellow witness Ali Hussein said that a building close to the revered shrines of Imam Hussein and Imam Abbas was hit by bullets.
"Ambulances and fire engines were unable to get to the scene of the clashes," said Ali Aradui, a hospital official in the city 110 kilometres (70 miles) south of Baghdad.
The governor of Karbala, Saad Safwaq, said on Tuesday that preparations were being made to turn the city's Al-Mokhayam mosque, controlled by militiamen loyal to firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, into a hospital.
In mid-April, the Shiite religious authority said it "would not object to turning the Al-Mokhayam mosque into a medical centre for pilgrims", he said.
Gunbattles have raged near the mosque, 200 metres (yards) away from the holy pilgrimage shrine of Imam Hussein, each time US-led coalition forces have tried to get near the building.
On Thursday, coalition forces destroyed the headquarters of a religious foundation backed by Sadr's supporters in the Saadia district, two kilometres from the shrines of Imam Hussein and Imam Abbas.
KARBALA, Iraq (AFP) - Between nine and 25 militiamen were killed in clashes with US forces overnight in the holy Iraqi city of Karbala, according to US military and local hospital sources.
AFP/File Photo
A US military official in Baghdad said up to 25 militiamen, understood to be members of Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi Army, died in the fighting, while seven US soldiers were wounded, four of them slightly.
Earlier the director of a hospital in Karbala, Hassan Nasrallah, said, "Nine militiamen were killed and seven people, including two Iranian pilgrims, were injured during the clashes which were in the centre of the city."
Heavy and light shooting ricocheted around the area all night and access to the city centre was sealed off on Wednesday morning by coalition roadblocks.
"I could not leave the house because of the shooting," 30-year-old civil servant Hashem Salman, who lives within the part of the city sealed off by coalition forces, told AFP by telephone.
Fellow witness Ali Hussein said that a building close to the revered shrines of Imam Hussein and Imam Abbas was hit by bullets.
"Ambulances and fire engines were unable to get to the scene of the clashes," said Ali Aradui, a hospital official in the city 110 kilometres (70 miles) south of Baghdad.
The governor of Karbala, Saad Safwaq, said on Tuesday that preparations were being made to turn the city's Al-Mokhayam mosque, controlled by militiamen loyal to firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, into a hospital.
In mid-April, the Shiite religious authority said it "would not object to turning the Al-Mokhayam mosque into a medical centre for pilgrims", he said.
Gunbattles have raged near the mosque, 200 metres (yards) away from the holy pilgrimage shrine of Imam Hussein, each time US-led coalition forces have tried to get near the building.
On Thursday, coalition forces destroyed the headquarters of a religious foundation backed by Sadr's supporters in the Saadia district, two kilometres from the shrines of Imam Hussein and Imam Abbas.