Al-Sadr forces clash with US in Kufa
Militants loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr clashed with US forces near a mosque in the Shiite holy city of Kufa today, and hospital officials said at least three Iraqis were killed and 16 others wounded.
In Baghdad, a car bomb exploded in a Sunni Muslim district, killing at least two people and injuring about 20 others, including children, police said.
It was the second fatal car bombing in the Iraqi capital in as many days.
Explosions rocked the industrial sections of Kufa, where Shiite leaders have been struggling to save a shaky cease-fire.
Many of the injured suffered shrapnel wounds from a mortar round which missed a US convoy, witnesses said.
Gunfire reverberated through the largely deserted streets as fighters loyal to al-Sadr took positions near the mosque, where gunbattles have raged in past days.
Clashes have rocked the city nearly every day since Shiite leaders announced an agreement by al-Sadr to end a two-month-old stand-off with the Americans there and in the twin city of Najaf.
The car bomb in Baghdad exploded in the city’s Azimiyah district in the north of the capital.
Police Lieut Mohammed Abdul-Aziz said two Iraqis were killed and about 20 injured, including five children.
Other preliminary estimates put the death toll at four.
Witnesses said a convoy of sport utility vehicles, favoured by Western contractors, had passed by moments before the blast.
Mortar attacks on a police station near the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah killed one Iraqi civilian and injured three people, including a US Marine, the military said.
The station was hit by 60mm mortar rounds in the two attacks, said Marine Captain Jason Smith, of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, which controls the area.
Marines and Iraqi security forces are stationed at the police compound in Kharma, a suburb of Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad.
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