By Xinhua
Baghdad : At least 12 suspected insurgents have been killed in US air strikes in different places in Iraq, the US military and coalition forces said Friday.
According to a military statement, an unmanned aerial vehicle fired a hellfire missile and killed six “criminals with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and a mortar tube” late Thursday in Sadr City district of Iraqi capital Baghdad.
A coalition military spokesman also said that six other insurgents were killed in a US air strike in Iraq’s southern port city of Basra.
“We think that six insurgents have been killed by the air strike which shelled insurgents who were launching mortar rounds on an Iraqi army headquarters in the Haiyyania neighbourhood in western Basra,” Captain Ford told Xinhua.
Sadr City is the main stronghold of the Shia militia group Mahdi Army, loyal to Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The group has been fighting the Iraqi troops supported by the US military on the streets in this sprawling district of 2.5 million people.