US, Iraqi forces sweep into Shiite city

Iraqi forces backed by American soldiers swept into a troubled, predominantly Shiite city south of Baghdad before dawn Friday, and the U.S. military said as many as six militia fighters had been killed.

Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a U.S. military spokesman, said between three and six militia fighters had been killed, eight were wounded and five detained. There were no reports of civilian casualties in the assault on Diwaniyah, code-named "Operation Black Eagle," he said.

Residents reported heavy fighting between the U.S. and Iraqi forces and gunmen of the Mahdi Army militia.

Dr. Hameed Jaafi, the director of Diwaniyah Health Directorate, said an American helicopter fire on a house in the Askari neighborhood, seriously wounding 12 people at the start of the early morning assault. Initial U.S. military accounts of the fighting did not include airstrikes.

A top spokesman for radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr denied that Mahdi Army militiamen were involved in the clashes.

"There is no exchange of fire. There is only an unprovoked attack by invading American troops. The aim is to weaken a protest called for by Sheik Muqtada on Monday," Haider al-Natiq, spokesman of the Baghdad Bureau of al-Sadr's political movement, said in an interview with al-Arabiya television.

Al-Sadr has called for a massive demonstration in the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Monday, the fourth anniversary of Baghdad's capture by U.S. forces.

The powerful cleric, who reportedly ordered his militia to disarm and stay off the streets during the Baghdad security crackdown, now in its eight week, has nevertheless issued a series of sharp anti-American statements, demanding the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops.

There have been increasing reports that gunmen associated with the militia have resumed operations in the capital and never ceased in outlying regions.

Dozens of people have been killed in Diwaniyah over the past weeks and the attacks have been blamed by residents on the Mahdi Army. Many women, accused by the hard-line and fundamentalist militiamen of violating their interpretation of Islamic morality, are among the dead. Also targeted have been police, residents who work for coalition forces at a nearby Polish army base, journalists and the wealthy, who have been kidnapped for ransom then killed.

The military said the assault on the city, 80 miles south of Baghdad, was led by Iraqi soldiers of the 8th army division backed by U.S. paratroopers of the 25th Infantry Division.