BAGHDAD (AFP) — Fresh US air strikes on suspected Shiite militiamen planning to launch attacks on security forces killed at least 12 people in Baghdad and Basra on Friday.
Six insurgents were killed by US aircraft in the southern port of Basra early Friday, hours after a Hellfire missile fired from a drone killed six militants in the Iraqi capital, US and British military officials said.
The strike in Basra happened when US aircraft homed in on the northern Al-Hayaniyah district after identifying a group of militants, British spokesman Major Tom Holloway told AFP by telephone.
"The air strike was launched after positively identifying a mortar team that was engaging the Iraqi troops on the ground," Holloway said.
Basra witnessed fierce clashes last month after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered a crackdown on Shiite militiamen, mostly from hardline cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.
The clashes eased after Sadr ordered his fighters to withdraw from the streets, but the Mahdi Army stronghold of Hayaniyah continues to be a flashpoint.
The US military announced Friday that an unmanned aircraft fired a Hellfire missile and killed six "heavily armed criminals" at around 9:45 pm (1845 GMT) on Thursday.
It said the missile was fired after the drone observed a large group of people with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and mortar tubes.
Two previous air strikes announced by the military on Thursday killed six people in similar circumstances.
On Friday, Sadr City residents said there was a lull in violence in the neighbourhood but sniper attacks had wounded three people.
"Sadr City was quiet last night. This morning there were some gun shots, while three people were wounded by snipers. We did not hear any explosions," said one resident, Abdul Hussein Hadi.
Battles have raged since Sunday between Iraqi and US forces and Shiite fighters from the Mahdi Army in the militia's eastern Baghdad bastion of Sadr City.
Iraqi officials claim around 80 people have been killed, with scores wounded.
Sadr's movement said on Thursday it was "under siege" and warned that its militia was ready to take up arms again, breaking a ceasefire ordered by Sadr last August.
The US military says the attacks are targeted at "criminals" firing rockets and mortars into Baghdad neighbourhoods and at the fortified Green Zone where the Iraqi government and the US embassy are based.
Sadr's supporters say the US-led attacks have killed many civilians, including women and children.
Meanwhile, an Iraqi defence ministry official said some residents of Baghdad's Shiite Kadhimiyah neighbourhood, home to a Shiite shrine, have handed over their weapons after the army issued a three-day deadline on Tuesday.
"Some people have handed over their arms after the prime minister's plan to make shrine cities across Iraq free from weapons," the official said.
The deadline ends Saturday but it could be extended by another "two or three days," he added.
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