World

Battle Over Baghdad Mosque Firefight

March 27, 2006 / 6:21 AM EST / CBS/AP

A murky picture is emerging about violence that took place before sundown Sunday in Iraq, with Iraqis claiming U.S. forces entered a mosque and opened fire killing at least 20 people on the outskirts of the Shiite slum of Sadr City, reports CBS News.

Police found 30 more victims of the sectarian violence ravaging Iraq — most of them beheaded — dumped on a village road north of Baghdad on Sunday.

Accounts of the Baghdad raid varied. Aides to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said 18 men were killed in the joint U.S.-Iraqi raid on a mosque. Police said 22 people were killed in the incident at the al-Mustafa mosque. The Americans said Iraqi special forces backed by U.S. troops killed 16 "insurgents" in a raid on a community meeting hall after gunmen opened fire on approaching troops.

"No mosques were entered or damaged during this operation," the military said in a statement issued at least five hours after what it termed a "twilight raid." It said a non-Western hostage was freed, but no name or nationality was provided.

"As elements of the 1st Iraqi Special Operations Forces Brigade entered their objective, they came under fire. In the ensuing exchange of fire...(Iraqi troops) killed 16 insurgents. As they secured their objective, they detained 15 more individuals," the military statement said.

CBS News correspondent Lara Logan reports it is unclear what happened, but that it comes on the back of several incidents where Americans are being investigated for use of force on Iraqis, and there is talk on the street of revenge (video).

In other recent developments:

Iraqi authorities reported late Sunday that U.S. forces raided an Interior Ministry building and arrested 40 policemen after discovering 17 non-Iraqi prisoners in the facility. Police 1st Lt. Thayer Mahmoud said the arrested police were being held for investigation, but the reason was not known.

On the Sunday morning talk shows, Bush administration officials, notably Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley talked about connections between Iran with the Iraq insurgency and al-Qaeda. Hadley told CBS News correspondent Gloria Borger on Face The Nation, "Clearly, there are contacts between Iran and elements in Iran and groups in Iraq that are promoting violence. We also have evidence of equipment that clearly was of Iranian origin showing up in improvised explosive devices that are killing Iraqis and killing the coalition."

A 13-year-old boy was killed by a roadside bomb as he walked to school in the southern city of Basra, one of 20 victims of violence that continued to rattle Iraq Sunday. The explosion occurred at 7:30 a.m. as children were arriving for class in the center of Basra, about 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, police Capt. Mushtaq Kadim said. The school week begins Sunday and runs through Thursday in Iraq, where Friday is the day of prayer for Muslims.

The Bush administration will ask Russia about a Pentagon report that Moscow turned over information on American troop movements and other military plans to Saddam Hussein during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday. "Any implication that there were those from a foreign government who may have been passing information to the Iraqis prior to the invasion would be, of course, very worrying," Rice said. Moscow denied the report's findings.

The U-S-S McCampbell collided with an oil tanker late Saturday about 30 miles southeast of the Iraqi coastline. Two sailors and two crew members from the tanker were treated at the scene. Both ships have minor damage but were deemed seaworthy.

Abdul-Zahra al-Suaidi, head of Muqtada al-Sadr's office in Baghdad, said U.S. forces and Iraqi army soldiers opened fire at the al-Moustafa Shiite mosque in the Ur neighborhood, killing 18 people in what he called an unprovoked attack. Iraqi police Lt. Hassan Hmoud said 18 people were killed in the mosque. He said he had no other details.

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite, expressed concern and telephoned Iraqi military leaders and U.S. commander Gen. George Casey to "discuss the situation," said spokesman Abdul Rezzaq Al-Kadhimi.

He said the prime minister promised government compensation for families of those killed in the raid and called for Iraqis to be patient until an investigation was completed.

Police Lt. Hassan Hmoud, who put the death toll at 22 with eight wounded, said some of the casualties were at the Islamic Dawa Party-Iraq Organization office near the mosque. The incident started when U.S. forces came under fire from an unknown source in the direction of the mosque and the party office, he said. The party is a separate organization from the one headed by al-Jaafari.

Shiite legislator and party spokesman, Khudayer al-Khuzai, said 15 members of the party were holding a "cultural meeting" in an office near the Shiite mosque. "They have nothing to do with the acts of violence," he said.

Al-Khuzai claimed that after coming under attack, U.S. forces raided the party office, "tortured" the men, dragged them out and "executed" them. He said it wasn't clear who attacked the U.S. troops.

The main Shiite political bloc, the United Iraqi Alliance, planned to hold a meeting on Tuesday to demand a quick investigation to determine the reasons behind the incident "because the Iraqi blood is not cheap," al-Khuzai said.

U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, denied that the troops targeted a party office.

"The building was not a party headquarters but a community meeting room, and there was substantial intelligence on this building showing that that was not, in fact, what it was used for," he said.

Associated Press videotape from the scene showed a tangle of dead male bodies with gunshot wounds on the floor of what was said by the cameraman to be the mosque imam's living quarters, attached to the place of worship.

The tape showed 5.56 mm shell casings scattered about the floor. U.S. forces use that caliber ammunition. A grieving man in white Arab robes stepped among the dead bodies strewn across the blood smeared floor.

A total of at least 69 people were reported killed Sunday in one of the bloodiest days in weeks. Most of the dead appeared to be victims the shadowy Sunni-Sectarian score-settling that has torn at the fabric of Iraq since Feb. 22 when a Shiite shrine was blown apart in Samarra, north of Baghdad.

Much of the recent killing is seen as the work of Shiite militias or death squads that have infiltrated or are tolerated by Iraqi police under the control of the Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry.

Many of the victims have been found dumped, mainly in Baghdad, with their hands tied, showing signs of torture and shot in the head.