IRAQ - Apr 9 - More Than 20 Killed In Baghdad Fighting.

More than 20 people are reported killed and an American helicopter is damaged in an all-day fight between militants and Iraqi and American military forces in the turbulent Fadhil neighbourhood here, according to residents of the area. In a statement, the US military confirmed the damage to the Apache helicopter and reports of the battle, but it did not have any numbers for the casualties. The largely Sunni Arab neighbourhood on the east side of Baghdad is surrounded by Shi'ite areas, and it is widely considered a stronghold of the Sunni Arab insurgency. According to neighbourhood residents, the fighting began around dawn on Apr 9 when the Iraqi Army raided a mosque and killed two men in front of the other worshipers at the early morning prayer. "One was named Sheik Saif, he was the muzzerein", said Qais Ahmad, 36, a day laborer. The muzzerein is the person who calls the faithful to prayer from a mosque's loudspeakers and often is a well-known figure in a neighbourhood. "Then the locals took their guns and went out to fight the Iraqi Army and the police in reaction to these executions", Ahmad said. American troops who were nearby came in to help the Iraqi Army. Iraqi and American forces were involved in a routine cordon and search operation when the Americans came under small arms fire. The Americans on the ground called for air support, according to the American military statement. Ahmad said he went to one of the mosques where bodies were laid out at the end of the day and counted 36 people including women and children. Residents who responded to telephone calls earlier in the day reported that there were at least 23 dead. The Sunni Muslim Scholars Association condemned the killing of women and children. "The civilians of this district call for the free world and the human rights organizations to stop this massacre that does not differentiate between men and women and children", the group said. "They call for relief and for help with their injuries". Ahmad said that the fighting had raged almost without stopping and that when he opened his door late in the day he found bullets, broken glass and blood on the sidewalk. He added, however, that neighbourhood residents had done some damage to the Iraqi Army. "We managed to burn five Iraqi Army Humvees by using Molotov cocktail bombs", he said. A Black Hawk helicopter was also hit by small arms fire in central Baghdad, according to an American military statement. But there were no casualties reported in either of the attacks on helicopters, according to the statement. Four American soldiers died, the US military announced. Three were hit by a roadside bomb and a second explosion in the southern part of Baghdad and the fourth was killed in Anbar Province in Western Iraq, the military said. In Muqdadiya, a town in Diyala Province about 80 kms from Baghdad, a woman suicide bomber killed as many as 17 men applying to become members of the police force, according to news agency reports. Lt Col Michael Donnelly of the 25th Infantry Division in Diyala said that the military counted nine dead, but that numbers of dead were typically inaccurate in the first 24 hours. He termed the attack "another weak attempt by the enemy to break the will of the people". Donnelly added that the vest was stuffed with ball bearings and that those killed and wounded were both aspiring Iraqi police officers and bystanders. A guard at the police recruiting station and police officials said that the woman was wearing the long dress called an abbaya frequently worn by Iraqi women and that under it she wore a suicide belt. News agencies reported that the explosion wounded 33 people in the majority-Sunni Arab town. Suicide bombings by women are rare, with the last one happening in Baghdad at the Baratha mosque on April 7, 2006. In that case there were three suicide bombers, including one woman. Also Apr 9, six civilians were killed when a car bomb exploded at a checkpoint near Baghdad University, The AP reported.