Iraqis battle gunmen in Shiite neighborhoods

Saturday, July 22, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraqi forces backed by a U.S. helicopter battled Sunni gunmen south of Baghdad on Friday, and at least 11 combatants died. U.S. troops killed five Iraqis -- including two women and a child -- in a separate exchange of fire. An extended ban on vehicles held down violence Friday in Baghdad after one of the most violent weeks in the capital this year, but four people were wounded by a bomb outside a Sunni mosque, police said. The deadly firefight occurred in two mostly Shiite neighborhoods of Mahmoudiya, a town 20 miles south of Baghdad where 50 people were killed in a market this week in an attack by Sunni gunmen.

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