Fierce Battle In Central Baghdad
U.S. and Iraqi troops battled Sunni insurgents hiding in high-rise buildings on Haifa Street in the heart of Baghdad on Wednesday, with snipers on roofs taking aim at gunmen in open windows as Apache attack helicopters hovered overhead.
Iraq said 30 militants were killed and 27 captured.
Families were awakened by heavy gunfire and mortars fired by U.S. forces as they tried to help the Iraqi Army and police regain control of Haifa Street, reports CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan.
While the battle raged there, a few miles south in the violent neighborhood of Dora, U.S. troops were engaged in the ongoing battle against roadside bombs — the biggest killer of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, Logan reports.
New details also emerged about the downing of a private U.S. security company helicopter on Tuesday, with U.S. and Iraqi officials saying four of the five Americans who died in the incident were shot execution-style. Violence was unrelenting in Iraq on Wednesday, with at least 69 people killed or found dead, including 33 tortured bodies found in separate locations in Baghdad.
With President Bush pushing his plan to increase troops strength in Iraq, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the latest joint raid was aimed at clearing the Haifa Street area of "terrorists and outlaws" targeting residents. He promised such operations would continue as U.S. and Iraqi troops prepare for a broader security crackdown to stanch the sectarian bloodletting that has turned Baghdad into a battlefield.
At 5 a.m. Wednesday, Iraqi Army and American troops moved into the Sunni stronghold to launch targeted raids in a third bid this month to clear the neighborhood of militants. Armored vehicles massed along Haifa Street, where a median with trees separates four lanes of traffic lined by tall apartment houses built by Saddam Hussein for loyalists and dissidents from other Arab countries, mainly Syria.
The U.S.-Iraqi force faced fierce resistance from insurgents using hand-grenades, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms from the high-rises, the American military said. The explosions were so loud they could be heard across the capital. Black smoke rose from the area, located on the west bank of the Tigris River about a mile north of the Green Zone, site of the U.S. and British embassies as well as the Iraqi government headquarters.
At one point, U.S. and Iraqi forces rushed into an office building on the edge of Haifa Street and told all the employees to go home as they fanned out and sent snipers to the roof, according to Jabbar al-Mashhadani, a Cultural Ministry spokesman.
The U.S. military said the combined force in the operation, dubbed Tomahawk Strike II, detained seven suspected insurgents and seized heavy weapons, including many rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank rounds and 155 mm artillery rounds. The Iraqi Defense Ministry said 30 insurgents were killed and 27 captured, including four Egyptians and a Sudanese.
At least one civilian was killed and seven were wounded, hospital and police officials said.
In other developments:
Anti-war activists, unions and other national organizations promise a large protest rally Saturday against the Iraq war. Groups say they have chartered hundreds of buses and expect thousands of people to descend on the National Mall for the demonstration west of the Capitol. Organizers said Wednesday the protest is part of an effort that will include lobbying congressional offices next week and other rallies later across the country.
A much-anticipated intelligence assessment on Iraq says success depends on improving poor security, which is fueling sectarian violence, hurting the government and slowing reconstruction, a senior U.S. intelligence official told senators Tuesday.
Saddam Hussein's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid told the court Wednesday that he does not regret any decision he made while crushing a Kurdish uprising nearly two decades ago, adding that the government's campaign was not targeting Kurds because of their ethnicity. Al-Majid, also known as "Chemical Ali" for his alleged use of chemical weapons against Kurds, said the aim was to put an end to a Kurdish insurgency in northern Iraq that was targeting Saddam's government.
The military reported separately that an American soldier was killed Wednesday in clashes near the city's center, but officials declined to give more specifics or say whether the death was connected to the Haifa Street fighting. Two U.S. Marines also were reported killed on Tuesday during combat in Anbar province, the military said.
Haifa Street, a major avenue in central Baghdad, was built in the late 1970s and cuts through the neighborhood where Saddam Hussein attended school as a teenager and where he once lived with his maternal uncle and future father-in-law.
It has been the site of repeated clashes, including a major battle on Jan. 9, just three days after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced his new security plan for pacifying Baghdad. Fighting broke out again about a week later.
A bronze statue of Iraq's late King Faisal on horseback sits at one end of the broad avenue. During a visit to the neighborhood after the 1991 Gulf war, residents complained to Saddam about their poverty, prompting him to order homes demolished and new apartment complexes built.
© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Iraq said 30 militants were killed and 27 captured.
Families were awakened by heavy gunfire and mortars fired by U.S. forces as they tried to help the Iraqi Army and police regain control of Haifa Street, reports CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan.
While the battle raged there, a few miles south in the violent neighborhood of Dora, U.S. troops were engaged in the ongoing battle against roadside bombs — the biggest killer of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, Logan reports.
New details also emerged about the downing of a private U.S. security company helicopter on Tuesday, with U.S. and Iraqi officials saying four of the five Americans who died in the incident were shot execution-style. Violence was unrelenting in Iraq on Wednesday, with at least 69 people killed or found dead, including 33 tortured bodies found in separate locations in Baghdad.
With President Bush pushing his plan to increase troops strength in Iraq, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the latest joint raid was aimed at clearing the Haifa Street area of "terrorists and outlaws" targeting residents. He promised such operations would continue as U.S. and Iraqi troops prepare for a broader security crackdown to stanch the sectarian bloodletting that has turned Baghdad into a battlefield.
At 5 a.m. Wednesday, Iraqi Army and American troops moved into the Sunni stronghold to launch targeted raids in a third bid this month to clear the neighborhood of militants. Armored vehicles massed along Haifa Street, where a median with trees separates four lanes of traffic lined by tall apartment houses built by Saddam Hussein for loyalists and dissidents from other Arab countries, mainly Syria.
The U.S.-Iraqi force faced fierce resistance from insurgents using hand-grenades, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms from the high-rises, the American military said. The explosions were so loud they could be heard across the capital. Black smoke rose from the area, located on the west bank of the Tigris River about a mile north of the Green Zone, site of the U.S. and British embassies as well as the Iraqi government headquarters.
At one point, U.S. and Iraqi forces rushed into an office building on the edge of Haifa Street and told all the employees to go home as they fanned out and sent snipers to the roof, according to Jabbar al-Mashhadani, a Cultural Ministry spokesman.
The U.S. military said the combined force in the operation, dubbed Tomahawk Strike II, detained seven suspected insurgents and seized heavy weapons, including many rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank rounds and 155 mm artillery rounds. The Iraqi Defense Ministry said 30 insurgents were killed and 27 captured, including four Egyptians and a Sudanese.
At least one civilian was killed and seven were wounded, hospital and police officials said.
In other developments:
The military reported separately that an American soldier was killed Wednesday in clashes near the city's center, but officials declined to give more specifics or say whether the death was connected to the Haifa Street fighting. Two U.S. Marines also were reported killed on Tuesday during combat in Anbar province, the military said.
Haifa Street, a major avenue in central Baghdad, was built in the late 1970s and cuts through the neighborhood where Saddam Hussein attended school as a teenager and where he once lived with his maternal uncle and future father-in-law.
It has been the site of repeated clashes, including a major battle on Jan. 9, just three days after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced his new security plan for pacifying Baghdad. Fighting broke out again about a week later.
A bronze statue of Iraq's late King Faisal on horseback sits at one end of the broad avenue. During a visit to the neighborhood after the 1991 Gulf war, residents complained to Saddam about their poverty, prompting him to order homes demolished and new apartment complexes built.
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feeling a bit strident, eh? Yelling tends to be the tool of the one least able to reason a point. Most of us in the U S who are less enthusiastic about the polciies, especially regarding Iraq of the object of your awe. You might want to specify the specific fascists you are sure will lose. Do you mean the bush/cheney fascists or the foreign fascists? A convincing argument can be easily made for labelling either group with the term fascist. dumbya and little dickey c could have taken their foreign policy from adolph's record with some names changed.
This administration has an across the board honesty problem. With regard to Iraq it has been especially dishonest, especially incompetent or the more likely option of both exceptionally dishonest and incompetent.
In case bill orally's verse of the day is his "what about clinton?" I'll save us both some time and answer now, that when clinton lied, nobody died because of His lie.
They HAVE the power to end this disaster! This needless horrific WAR IF TERROR started by the NeoCons with the complicit Democrats and corporate medial.
But the Democrats won't stop this War. And their hands are becoming more bloodstained every day.
"Hate Our Way of Life"??
Gee, where have I heard that propaganda before. Don't be such a chump, sucking up little phrases like that into your little brain. It's a bit more complex.
For example, if the US were Oil Rich, but militarily weak, and a Moslem superpower invaded, starting a War that took the lives of your family memebers or friends, sent people off to prisons like Ahbu Grahib without charges, set up permanent military bases... and suppose this superpower had a track record of meddling in third world countries (you know the overthrowing democracies, installing and supporting friendly brutal dictators (like Saddam), raping the natural resources of your country,...).
Well, how would you feel about it?
JOIN the ANTI-WAR PROTEST SATURDAY in WASHINGTON DC
CBS won't give it coverage, as they have ignored the anti-war movement since pre-Invasion days (too bad for America).
That all the people would finally realize that all the prophets and all the holy men said that violence was wrong and that all the people in all the world would suddenly believe it and put down all things that could be used and were being used as weapons and walk away from it, all at the same time so no one would be saying you first.
Dream on.