Militants fight daily to forestall Iraqi wall

BAGHDAD — U.S. troops continued yesterday to battle Shi’ite extremists along a garbage-strewn stretch of road in Baghdad’s Sadr City in an effort to protect the capital’s Green Zone and choke off the militant influence of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia.

Elsewhere in the capital, Iraq’s first lady escaped unharmed yesterday from a bomb attack that struck her motorcade, injuring four bodyguards.

President Jalal Talabani’s wife, Hiro Ibrahim Ahmed, was headed to the city’s central National Theater to attend a cultural festival when her motorcade was hit in the Karrada district, according to the president’s office. It was not clear whether she was the target or whether the attack was a random bombing.

The daily battles in Sadr City are anything but random. Most take place on al-Quds Street, a broad thoroughfare of single- and double-story buildings where troops are building a 3-mile-long concrete barrier to keep militants from infiltrating the southern Tharwa and Jamilla neighborhoods.

The southern locations in Sadr City allow militants to fire 107 mm and 120 mm rockets into the Green Zone, the seat of the Iraqi government and the location of U.S. military and diplomatic headquarters.

“This is a mission that has to get done, to stop these thugs from firing their rockets and stuff,” said 1st Sgt. Conrad Gonzales, of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 68th Armor Regiment.

“Every day we get attacked, every day we’re putting in barriers. The mission has to go on. It has to be accomplished and we can’t let anyone stop us,” said 1st Sgt. Gonzales, whose unit is based at Fort Carson, Colo.

U.S. troops said they killed 18 Shi’ite extremists yesterday in unrelenting street battles in Sadr City, Shula and New Baghdad, the Associated Press reported.

A brief battle Saturday witnessed by a reporter from The Washington Times was typical of clashes occurring since April 19, when a thud marked the emplacement of the first 12,000-pound concrete slab.

It started with several quick rounds of sniper fire from the north and south sides of Route Gold, as U.S. forces call al-Quds.

Troops of Red Squad, 1/68, replied with volleys of rifle and machine gun fire after taking cover behind and alongside construction cranes. So tight was the cover that soldiers were peppered by the hot, spent shell casings of other soldiers’ weapons.

Bradley armored vehicles joined the fray with their 25 mm guns. For 20 minutes during twilight, U.S. soldiers and Shi’ite gunmen took aim at each other from distances as close as 30 yards.

The firefight ended as most others do: An “angel above” — a U.S. Apache helicopter — zeroed-in on the main locations of enemy gunmen and let loose with Hellfire rockets.

The dust hardly settled before the soldiers were again guiding the barriers into place, interrupted only by several other incidents during the night.

According to company statistics, 118 Shi’ite extremist gunmen have been confirmed as killed in battles between April 19 and Friday along the barrier route.

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