April 26, 2008

Green Zone attacked during sandstorm

Baghdad's Green Zone was attacked with rockets during a blinding sandstorm on Sunday.

Early reports said two people were killed and 20 were wounded.

Militants took advantage of the cover of a blinding dust storm to launch one of the heaviest strikes in weeks on the fortified compound, according to Reuters.

The strikes appeared to defy a renewed call for a ceasefire issued on Friday by Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, which has seen many of his masked gunmen leave the streets of the Sadr City slum where they hold sway in eastern Baghdad.

Reuters reports that its correspondents heard missiles whistling overhead and exploding inside the heavily fortified government and diplomatic compound on the west side of the Tigris River. Sirens wailed, ordering people to take cover.

"The Green Zone has received several rounds of IDF (indirect fire) but I can't say more than that," U.S. embassy spokesman Armand Cucciniello said. "The duck and cover alarm sounded and people ran out for cover."

Militiamen have fired 700 missiles and mortars over the past month, but U.S. forces had said they believed they had reduced the fighters' ability to strike the Green Zone by occupying the part of the Sadr City slum closest to it.

At least eight people were killed and 44 others were wounded in overnight fighting in Sadr City, according to an Interior Ministry official.

Violence elsewhere in Baghdad brought the toll to at least 14 killed and 79 wounded over the weekend, according to the Iraqi official.

In some incidents, U.S. military officials had a slightly lower death toll.

In the overnight fighting in Sadr City, the U.S. military official said seven Shiite militants were killed. The seven were "special group extremists" and all but one were targeted by airstrikes, the military said.