Deadly clashes erupt in Iraqi Shiite holy city
KARBALA, Iraq (AFP) — Fierce clashes broke out between Shiite militants and Iraqi forces in the Shiite holy city of Karbala late on Sunday, killing six fighters and a soldier, medics and police said.
The fighting erupted when gunmen from the Mahdi Army, the militia controlled by radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, ambushed an Iraqi police patrol, a police officer from Karbala told AFP on condition of anonymity.
He said the patrol was struck by a roadside bomb and later attacked by small arms fire.
The clashes erupted hours after the US military declared it had killed 49 "criminals" in Baghdad's Sadr City, the bastion of the Mahdi Army.
A medic at the city's Al-Hussein Hospital said the dead in Karbala included six militants and an Iraqi soldier.
He said the dead included a local Mahdi Army commander Mohammed Sharia whose brother Ali Sharia was arrested two months ago by the US military.
"The clashes started at 8 pm and continued until late in the night. The firefight took place in three western neighbourhoods of the city," the medic added.
The police officer said three people from a family were wounded when their house was hit by a mortar fired by the militants during the clashes.
Karbala was also the site of bloody firefight on August 28 when 52 people were killed as gunmen clashed with Iraqi police near the Imam Hussein shrine.
Those clashes erupted at a time when hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims flooded the streets of Karbala to mark the birth anniversary of an eighth century imam.
The Mahdi Army was widely blamed for the bloodshed and Sadr later ordered a six-month suspension of the militia's activities.
The US military however claims that many leaders of the Mahdi Army are not observing Sadr's ceasefire call and are still resorting to violence.
