A U.S. and Iraqi raid to arrest a Shiite militia leader sparked a fierce battle in the holy city of Karbala Friday that led to a U.S. airstrike and left some 17 Shiites dead, the American military said. The joint force moved in before dawn to detain a man described as the commander of a breakaway group of the Mahdi Army, along with two other suspects.
The raid went off without incident, but the troops came under fire as they left the area with their prisoners, the military said, according to the AP. Attackers fired small arms, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades from three locations. Five Shiite fighters died in the clash, the military said.
The Shiites fired on a helicopter assisting the operation and U.S. special forces called in attack aircraft, which launched an airstrike that killed about a dozen more militants, the U.S. military said. For their part, local officials said nine people were killed, including four militiamen and five civilians, and 23 people were wounded.
Northeast of Baghdad, U.S. forces captured four suspects they called linked to networks that smuggle weapons and fighters from Iran. The raid in the village of Qasarin, 10 miles north of Baqouba, was targeting a "highly sought operative believed to be a senior leader of a weapons smuggling network," the American statement said.
The military announced separately that a U.S. soldier had been killed by a roadside bomb in restive Diyala province. At least 65 U.S. troops have died this month, a relatively low number compared with American death tolls of more than 100 for each of the previous three months.
In other violence, a roadside bomb exploded in Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, killing five civilians, police said.
