By DPA,
Baghdad : The ongoing fighting in east Baghdad’s Shia-dominated Sadr City area left at least four people dead and 41 injured in the past 24 hours, medical officials said Sunday.
US and Iraqi troops have been battling members of the Shia Mahdi Army militia in Sadr City, a slum of 2.5 million people and a stronghold for the militia.
“Imam Ali hospital in Sadr City has received four dead and 21 wounded in the past 24 hours while al-Sadr hospital received 20 wounded,” unnamed medical sources told the Voices of Iraq news agency.
On Saturday, the US military fired guided missiles on the district, which destroyed a building close to a hospital as well as several ambulances and wounded at least 20 people, according to eyewitness accounts.
The US military said it struck with precision-controlled munitions “a criminal element command-and-control centre” in Sadr City.
The military uses the term “criminal elements” to refer to Iranian-backed Shiite gunmen.
Eight suspects have been killed in the battle, the military said.