U.S. death toll at 1,000 as forces battle al-Sadr

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5911852/

 

U.S. death toll at 1,000 as forces battle al-Sadr

 

36 people, including 2 Americans, killed in clashes in

Baghdad slum

 

MSNBC News Services

Updated: 6:03 p.m. ET Sept. 7, 2004

 

BAGHDAD, Iraq - As U.S. forces again battled

insurgents loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the

White House said Tuesday that the U.S. death toll in

Iraq had reached 1,000 nearly 18 months after U.S.-led

forces invaded the country to topple the government of

former President Saddam Hussein.

 

 

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the

latest Defense Department figures showed that 997 U.S.

troops and three civilian employees of the Defense

Department had been killed in Iraq.

 

Nearly 7,000 U.S. troops have also been wounded since

the invasion.

 

McClellan’s statement came shortly after The

Associated Press reported that its independent tally —

based on Defense Department records, the AP’s own

reporting from Iraq and reports from soldiers’

families — showed that 998 U.S. troops and three

civilian contractors had been killed while working for

the Defense Department.

 

‘Remember, honor and mourn’

With President Bush under sharp criticism from

Democrats for invading Iraq without support from major

allies, the milestone is expected to play a

significant role in debate ahead of the November

election.

 

 

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• Grim milestone

Sept. 7: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says the

“civilized world” long ago passed the number of 1,000

victims of terrorism.

 

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“We remember, honor and mourn the loss of all those

who have made the ultimate sacrifice defending

freedom, and we also remember those who lost their

lives on Sept. 11,” McClellan told reporters as Bush

addressed a campaign rally in Columbia, Mo.

 

Kerry told reporters in Kentucky: “Today marks a

tragic milestone in the war in Iraq.”

 

In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld noted

earlier in the day that U.S. forces were soon “likely

to suffer the 1,000th casualty at the hands of

terrorists and extremists in Iraq.”

 

He tried to put that in context. “Combined with U.S.

losses in other theaters in the global war on terror,

we have lost well more than 1,000 already,” he said,

adding that the “civilized world” passed that mark

long ago, pointing to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist

attacks and attacks elsewhere.

 

The Bush administration has long linked the Iraq

conflict to the war on terrorism. The Sept. 11

commission concluded that Iraq and al-Qaida did not

have a “collaborative relationship” before the 2001

attacks, and some have questioned to what extent

foreign terror groups are involved in the anti-U.S.

insurgency in Iraq.

 

The grim milestone was surpassed after a spike in

fighting, which has killed 16 U.S. service members in

the past two days:

 

Two soldiers died in clashes Tuesday with militiamen

loyal to al-Sadr, and five other Americans died

Tuesday in separate attacks, most of them in the

Baghdad area. Monday, seven Marines were killed in a

suicide car bombing north of Fallujah. Two more

soldiers were killed in a mortar attack Sunday.

 

Tanks, warplanes used

In the Sadr City neighborhood, U.S. tanks moved in and

armored personnel carriers and Bradley fighting

vehicles were deployed at key intersections.

Ambulances with sirens wailing rushed the wounded to

hospitals as plumes of black smoke rose over the

mainly Shiite neighborhood.

 

Warplanes flew over the sprawling neighborhood of more

than 2 million, firing flares to avoid being hit by

anti-aircraft missiles.

 

 

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U.S. Army Capt. Brian O’Malley said the fighting

erupted when militants attacked U.S. forces carrying

out routine patrols, killing one American.

 

Sheik Raed al-Kadhimi, a spokesman for al-Sadr in

Baghdad, blamed what he called intrusive U.S.

incursions into Sadr City and attempts to arrest

al-Sadr’s followers. “Our fighters have no choice but

to return fire and to face the U.S. forces and

helicopters pounding our houses,” al-Kadhimi said in a

statement.

 

In the slum’s roadways, small groups of al-Sadr’s

Mahdi militia fighters used hammers to dig up the

asphalt to plant explosives. Bands of fighters in

civilian clothes — most of them in their teens and

early 20s — wielded rocket-propelled grenades and

trotted toward the clashes, children running in their

wake.

 

Other fighters, rifles in hand, gathered on street

corners. Roads leading to the area were blocked by the

militiamen using rocks and tires. By early afternoon,

most stores in the neighborhood were shut in

anticipation of more combat.

 

Peace talks falter

The renewed fighting came after a period of calm when

al-Sadr called on his followers last week to observe a

cease-fire and announced that he was going into

politics.

 

But aides to al-Sadr later said the peace talks in

Sadr City between the cleric’s representatives and

interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s government had

stalled, with the government refusing militants’

demands for U.S. troops to keep out of the troubled

district.

 

U.S. commanders have said they want to carry out an

assault to clear al-Sadr’s fighters from the district,

particularly its northern part, where the militiamen

are said to have dug in.

 

Al-Sadr led a three-week uprising in the holy city of

Najaf that ended 10 days ago with a peace deal that

allowed his Mahdi militia fighters to walk away with

their guns. The combat in Najaf left hundreds of

people dead and devastated much of the city.

 

Many Mahdi militiamen are believed to have returned to

their stronghold in Sadr City.

 

At a glance The new Iraq

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Suicide attack kills 7 U.S. Marines

Tuesday’s violence came a day after a suicide attack

on a military convoy outside Fallujah killed seven

U.S. Marines and three Iraqi soldiers, U.S. military

officials said. It was the deadliest day for U.S.

forces in four months.

 

Tawhid and Jihad, a group linked to Jordanian-born

militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, posted a statement on a

Web site Tuesday claiming responsibility for the

attack.

 

The bombing underscored the challenges U.S. commanders

face in securing Fallujah and surrounding Anbar

province, the heartland of a Sunni Muslim insurgency

bent on driving coalition forces from the country.

 

U.S. forces have not patrolled in Fallujah since a

three-week siege of the city in April that was aimed

at rooting out militiamen. As a result, insurgents

have strengthened their hold on the city, using it as

a base to make car bombs and launch attacks on U.S.

and Iraqi government forces.

 

The military said warplanes launched airstrikes

Tuesday, as tanks fired into the insurgent stronghold.

 

In other violence:

 

* The son of the governor of the northern city of

Mosul was killed in a drive-by shooting Tuesday,

hospital officials said.

* Unknown gunmen killed the deputy director of

Baghdad’s al-Karama hospital, the Health Ministry

said. The motive for the attack was not known.

* Two Iraqi policemen were killed and two others

injured in a drive-by shooting in Latifiyah, 25 miles

south of Baghdad late Monday, police said.

 

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this

report.