Monday, March 5, 2007
The U.S. military said three U.S. troops were killed in combat.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- U.S. and Iraqi troops poured into Baghdad's main Shiite militia stronghold Sunday, encountering no resistance in the one-time Sadr City combat zones but testing the Shiites' commitment to the U.S.-promoted campaign to drive militants from the capital.
Outside Baghdad, U.S. soldiers described a raid last week that uncovered a suspected Sunni "torture site" and the rescue of two Iraqi captives, who apparently had been spared immediate execution because the militants' video camera broke and they wanted to film the killing.
The quiet but dramatic advance in Sadr City -- involving nearly 1,200 U.S. and Iraqi forces who didn't fire a shot -- marked one of the most significant developments in the security clampdown in Baghdad since it took effect nearly three weeks ago.
But it only received the green light after drawn-out talks between U.S. commanders and political allies of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his powerful Mahdi Army. Both sides are watching each other for any wrong moves on the same streets where they battled in the past, including intense urban warfare in 2004.
Kidnapped official freed
Also Sunday, a kidnapped Iraqi defense official, Lt. Gen. Thamir Sultan, was freed after Iraqi security forces stormed a house where he had been held, a government spokesman said.
Three U.S. troops were killed in combat in Iraq's western Anbar province, the military said. One Marine and one sailor died Friday, and another Marine was killed Saturday, the military said in a statement. Their names were withheld pending family notification.
For a third consecutive day, Baghdad was spared a car bombing or attack bringing mass casualties. But there was still bloodshed. A Shiite newspaper editor and a police officer were gunned down.
Troops taking part in one operation that began Wednesday also stumbled upon an apparent hide-out west of Baghdad that was used by Sunni insurgents for torture and summary executions.
Lt. Col. Valery Keaveny described breaking through a double-locked door to find an Iraqi police officer and another Iraqi man who had undergone "considerable torture." The policeman had been shot in both ankles and the other man had been dangling from the ceiling and "beaten severely by a pipe for a good deal of time," Keaveny told reporters.
The captives told U.S. soldiers they had been convicted to death by an insurgent court at the site -- about 18 miles west of Baghdad near the village of Karmah -- and had the choice of either beheading or a fatal gunshot, said Keaveny.
They were spared immediate death, Keaveny said, because the insurgents' video camera didn't work and they had gone to get a new one to film the executions.
Elsewhere, the military said an airstrike Saturday in Arab Jabour, on the southern outskirts of Baghdad, forced insurgents to flee and leave behind four Iraqi hostages.
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