Two US air strikes in Baghdad's Sadr City district on Thursday killed six people as fighting flared for a fifth straight day between Shiite militiamen and security forces, officials said. Violence in other parts of the Iraqi capital and across the country killed another eight people, among them a policeman and a soldier, security and medical officials said.
An air strike mid-morning in the heart of Sadr City on a building killed two people and injured four, the officials said.
They added an earlier air raid, around midnight, killed four and wounded six near Al-Albaith mosque in the centre of Sadr City, stronghold of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr whose Mahdi Army militiamen are fighting Iraqi and US forces. Among those killed were two brothers, both adults, according to the security officials, cited by the AFP.
A U.S. military statement Thursday said 13 militants were killed in four separate clashes during the night. It also announced the death of another U.S. soldier Wednesday in a roadside bombing in central Baghdad, raising to 18 the number of American troop deaths in Iraq since Sunday.
