(CBS/AP) 
At least 11 Iraqis were killed in attacks elsewhere on Monday, according to police officers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared retribution.

Those included a roadside bombing against a police patrol in the northern Sunni city of Samarra that killed two commandos and wounded three. AP Television News footage showed youths cheering and stomping on bloodstains on the road while fires burned inside the charred vehicles.

In Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, whose forces control the area of the checkpoint hit by the suicide blast, spoke at length about U.S. efforts to draw Sunnis into the security forces.

"There are tribal sheiks out there who say 'Hey, just allow me to be the local security force. I don't care what you call me. ... You can call me whatever you want. Just give me the right training and equipment and I'll secure my area.' And that's the direction we're moving out there," the Third Infantry Division commander said.

In a meeting with reporters, Lynch said contacts with the Sunnis, who make up the bulk of the insurgency, were a matter of pragmatism.

"They say: 'We hate you because you are an occupier, but we hate al Qaeda worse and we hate the Persians (Iranians) even worse' ... you can't ignore that whole population," Lynch said.

His division, he said, had lost 43 soldiers since the beginning of the U.S. troop surge on Feb. 14.

Meanwhile, U.S. helicopter dropped flares on a crowd in a square in eastern Baghdad Sunday, hours after clashes between American troops and Shiite militia that left at least five people dead. The military said the flares were fired automatically by the Apache helicopter's defense system — not the crew.

Fighting broke out in the predominantly Shiite Fidhiliyah area on the Baghdad's outskirts late Friday after a U.S. military convoy came under attack outside the local offices of Muqtada al-Sadr, the anti-American cleric whose Mahdi Army militia has recently stepped up attacks on American troops.

Spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said no Americans were killed or wounded, but he did not have immediate information on Iraqi casualties.

Sheikh Mohammed al-Hilfi, an al-Sadr representative from the office, said the clashes broke out after a raid on the office, which doubles as a mosque. The military did not confirm the raid.

He said seven people were killed and 21 wounded, while local police officials put the casualty figure at five killed and 19 wounded. The officials said those killed were Iraqis and included bystanders caught in the crossfire, while 16 other men were detained.

Hundreds of men chanted as they carried the wooden coffins draped in Iraqi flags of four people reportedly killed in the violence.

Associated Press Television video shot early Sunday showed a low-flying Apache helicopter firing flares as several hundred people, including teenagers and children, gathered around a destroyed U.S. Humvee.

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