Iraq's government clamped a state of emergency on Baghdad and ordered
everyone off the streets Friday after U.S. and Iraqi forces battled insurgents
armed with rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades and rifles near the heavily
fortified Green Zone.
An Iraqi woman rushes
home past a policeman at a checkpoint, before a hastily-announced curfew
took hold in Baghdad, Iraq Friday, June 23, 2006. The Iraqi government
declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew from 2 p.m. Friday
until 6 a.m. Saturday in the capital, after insurgent gunmen set up
roadblocks in central Baghdad and opened fire on U.S. and Iraqi troops
just north of the heavily fortified Green Zone.
[AP] |
The military also announced the deaths of five more U.S. troops in a
particularly violent week for American forces that included the discovery of the
brutalized bodies of two soldiers. Twelve U.S. servicemembers have died or been
found dead this week.
The fierce fighting in the heart of Baghdad came despite a crackdown launched
10 days ago that put tens of thousands of U.S.-backed Iraqi troops on the
streets as the new prime minister sought to restore a modicum of safety for the
capital's 6 million people.
Iraqi and U.S. military forces clashed with heavily armed attackers
throughout the morning Friday in the alleys and doorways along Haifa Street and
within earshot of the Green Zone, which houses the U.S. and British embassies
and Iraqi government headquarters.
Four Iraqi soldiers and three policemen were wounded before the area was
sealed and searched house-to-house for insurgent attackers, police Lt. Maitham
Abdul Razzaq said. U.S. and Iraqi forces also engaged in firefights with
insurgents in the dangerous Dora neighborhood in south Baghdad.
Deadly clashes are not new to Haifa Street, a thoroughfare so dangerous that
a sign at one Green Zone exit checkpoint warns drivers against using the street.
But Friday's fighting was unusual in its scope and intensity, prompting Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki to order everyone off all streets in the capital with
just two hours notice and while Friday prayers were still in progress.
Clusters of women shrouded in black head-to-toe robes scurried along to beat
the ban, and U.S. soldiers frisked men also dashing home against a backdrop of
thick, black smoke rising above the white high-rise buildings of Haifa Street.
Helicopters flitted back and forth overhead.
Haifa Street was the scene of some of the heaviest resistance when U.S.
forces swept into Baghdad in March 2003, and it has remained difficult to
control because many residents have natural links to the Sunni-led insurgency.
It is lined with tall and relatively new buildings put up by former leader
Saddam Hussein to house Syrian refugees loyal to him and members of his
security forces.
Defense Ministry official Maj. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Mohamed Jassim initially said
all Baghdad residents must be off the streets from 2 p.m. until 6 a.m. Saturday,
but al-Maliki later declared the ban would end just three hours after it began.
The state of emergency, which was to continue for an indefinite period,
included a renewed prohibition on carrying weapons and gave Iraqi security
forces broader arrest powers, Jassim said.
"The state of emergency and curfew came in the wake of today's clashes to let
the army work freely to chase militants and to avoid casualties among
civilians," he said. "They will punish all those who have weapons with them and
they can shoot them if they feel that they are danger."
The Shiite prime minister had already announced other tough security
initiatives after taking office a month ago, when he vowed that Iraqi forces
would be in charge of security nationwide within 18 months.
He declared a similar state of emergency in the increasingly volatile
southern city of Basra at the beginning of June. The violence there continues,
however.
A car bomb ripped through a market and nearby gas station in the
predominantly Shiite city on Friday, killing at least five people and wounding
18, including two policemen, police said.
A bomb also struck a Sunni mosque in the town of Hibhib northeast of Baghdad,
killing 10 worshippers and wounding 15. Al-Qaida chieftain Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
was slain there in a U.S. airstrike earlier this month.
