Fighting erupts in Baghdad's Sadr City; suicide bombing at funeral in Tikrit

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Fighting erupted late Sunday in a Shiite militia stronghold of Baghdad, and a suicide bomber blew himself up among mourners at a funeral in Saddam Hussein's hometown, killing 10 people and injuring 22.

Three U.S. soldiers were killed late Sunday in a roadside bombing southwest of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. No further details were released.

In Baghdad, sounds of heavy gunfire and explosions rattled the Sadr City district starting about 5 p.m. Sunday Central time and lasted for more than an hour. Iraqi government television and aides to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said U.S. aircraft were attacking buildings in the area.

"Several aerial and ground raids began in central Sadr City," al-Sadr aide Jaleel al-Nouri said by telephone as detonations could be heard in the background. "We can see several houses on fire."

Kadhim al-Mohammedawi, a civil servant who lives in Sadr City, said by telephone that he could see two houses ablaze and "there's gunfire from all sides."

"We can hear women and children screaming," he said.

Col. Hassan Chaloub, police chief of Sadr City, said U.S. jets were flying over the city and at least three houses were ablaze. He said calls of "God is Great" and "There's no God but God" were blasting from loudspeakers in area mosques.

After more than an hour, the district was quiet residents said, except for the sounds of emergency vehicles racing through the streets.

There was no immediate comment from the U.S. military, which has reinforced its troop strength in the city to try to reclaim the streets from militias, including al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

Late Sunday, scattered clashes broke out between Shiite militiamen and Iraqi soldiers near Hamza Square on the edge of Sadr City, police said. Two militiamen were killed and five combatants were wounded, including two Iraqi soldiers, police said.

About the same time, gunmen ambushed a police patrol in south Baghdad, killing two policemen and wounding five others, police said.

The attack on the mourners occurred about 8:15 p.m. in Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad. The bomber mingled among the crowd in a funeral hall and detonated an explosive belt, police said.

Police Capt. Laith Hamid, who gave the casualty figure, said the mourners were attending services for the father of a local council member, who was killed in the attack. Part of the ceiling collapsed and some people might be trapped under the rubble, Hamid added.

Later, the attacker's vehicle was found and detonated as a safety measure in case it was rigged as a car bomb, police said.

The bombing was the latest in a series of attacks across northern Iraq in recent days that have tested the capabilities of Iraq's U.S.-trained security forces.

On Sunday, Iraqi authorities in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, lifted a partial curfew that was imposed two days earlier in the eastern part of the city after police repulsed a series of insurgent attacks in which a police colonel was killed.

The Defense Ministry said security forces had arrested 62 people in a crackdown across northern Iraq after the street battles.

Iraqi authorities were heartened by the performance of the Mosul police, who stood their ground and drove off the insurgents.

In November 2004, Mosul's entire 5,500-member police force fled during an insurgent uprising and the U.S. military had to send American troops and Kurdish fighters to regain control of the city, Iraq's third largest.

Also Sunday, several U.S. Marines were wounded and a few vehicles were destroyed by a suicide car bombing in Anbar province, the U.S. military said without further details. Iraqi police said the attack was in Fallujah, a heavily guarded city 40 miles west of Baghdad.

Gunmen in Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, ambushed a convoy of Iraqi trucks, killing two drivers and setting their vehicles on fire, police Capt. Laith Mohammed said.

A sniper killed a government security guard in southern Baghdad, police said. Gunmen in Fallujah killed a Sunni preacher, Sheik Ali Hussein al-Jumaili, when he resisted what appeared to have been a kidnap attempt, police said.

Police found the bodies of five men in Baghdad and one in the southeastern city of Amarah. All had been shot, police said.

A U.S. military statement said coalition forces killed one man during a raid north of Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad.

In the Kurdish province of Sulaimaniyah, security forces fired warning shots to disperse hundreds of demonstrators who burned tires and blocked roads to protest high fuel prices and poor living conditions. Three people were injured in the protest in the town of Chamchamal.

Police Lt. Col. Ahmed Nadir said the protest began peacefully, but then some demonstrators hurled stones, burned tires and attacked shops. Witnesses said the protesters were angry over fuel shortages, high prices and frequent electricity outages.

"This is too much. We demand the regional government improve the services in Chamchamal," said Ahmed Mohammed, 18, a taxi driver "This is not the first time that we have complained. We started more than a year ago but there is no solution."