By IRNA
Baghdad : At least 20 Iraqi civilians were killed and 31 others wounded in indiscriminate bombardment of Sadr City by the US helicopters and tanks on Sunday.
The US troops invaded Sadr City district of Baghdad in an operation they said to control neighborhoods used by militias to fire rockets and mortars into the nearby Green Zone.
Inhabitants of the city have taken refuge in mosques and their houses have levelled into rubble.
An American Stryker squadron involved through southern section of Sadr City.
American forces in Abraham tanks, Stryker and Bradley fighting vehicles rumbled to the scene and American helicopters are hitting the houses where the people are trapped.
A large whoosh from a rocket disrupted a briefing in Sadr City for a small group of reporters, prompting correspondents and soldiers to duck for their lives.
The news conference at the lone American Army and Iraqi combat outpost in Sadr City was given by Gen. Abud Qanbar Hashim, the Iraqi commander for Baghdad, and Maj. Gen. Jeffrey W. Hammond, who leads the American division charged with securing the capital, and began as bursts of gunfire rattled nearby streets.
General Hammond explained later that the projectile was probably an errant 107-millimeter rocket aimed at the Green Zone and launched from north Sadr City.
General Abud said the Iraqi operations in Sadr City were not aimed at any specific political movement. The statement seemed intended to reassure Mr. Sadr’s followers.
“The main thing is that arms should be in the hands of the state,” he said. “And we will never allow any armed group to carry arms as an alternative to the state to provide security to the citizens.” Moving into Sadr City’s streets and alleys, American soldiers have taken up positions in abandoned houses, living in primitive conditions and trying to fend off counterattacks from a enemy fighters who appeared to have a well-organized system of command and control.
Over the past week, Mr. Maliki has also been trying to recoup the political damage he sustained when his American-supported military assault in Basra met with intense resistance from militias.
After a six-day stalemate, high-level negotiations resulted in Mr.
Sadr’s issuing a statement on March 30 ordering his followers to stop fighting.
The security council – whose members include Mr. Maliki; President Jalal Talabani; Mahmoud al-Mashidani, the speaker of Parliament; and representatives of the major political parties – demanded that the militias be disbanded.
The council’s 15-point statement also called for all parties to “appreciate the role of the army in imposing security and order in Basra and the rest of the provinces.”
Luway Smessem, the head of the Sadr party’s political committee, said that though “the group agreed with much of the statement, party officials had reservations about some points, including the demands that militias disband and that Mr. Maliki’s Basra campaign be supported.
“The Mahdi Army is not a militia,” he said.
“We don’t have masked fighters and everyone knows who we are and who our commanders are.”