18 Iraqis killed in U.S. raid in Baghdad

BAGHDAD â€”  U.S. forces firing from helicopters Friday pursued militiamen loyal to a radical anti-U.S. Shiite cleric into a west Baghdad district, killing at least 18 people, reportedly including some civilians.

Meanwhile, as counterinsurgency efforts continue against suspected hide-outs of gunmen and bomb-makers, a senior U.S. commander in Iraq said withdrawing troops would undermine gains.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, who commands more than one-third of the nearly 30,000 additional troops deployed to Iraq in recent months, rejected a call from a prominent Republican senator for President Bush to begin reducing troops, saying it would be a “giant step backwards.�

U.S.-led forces said Friday’s predawn raid in the Shula district, controlled by cleric Muqtada Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia, was in response to an attack on a U.S. patrol in the area. But residents said the U.S. helicopter attack caught many people asleep on their roofs, where they go to escape the stifling heat of apartments that get only an hour or two of electricity each day.

Hospital officials reported that two female bodies were among those brought to two local morgues, and a Sadr spokesman said four women had been killed. Angry relatives and neighbors vowed revenge as they carried the victims’ coffins through the streets.

Sadr, whose militia U.S. military leaders accuse of sectarian killings and a campaign of harassment against American troops, denounced the air attacks and called on supporters to stage protests across the country.

The U.S. assault “resulted in killing 20 civilians, including women, children and elderly, and injuring tens more, some in critical condition,� charged Nassar Rubaie, head of a parliamentary bloc loyal to Sadr.

He said he held Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s government responsible.

Rubaie, and several influential imams in their Friday sermons in Shiite strongholds, blamed the bloodshed in Iraq on the U.S. presence.

“The presence of the occupation forces is attracting terrorism to this country,� he said.

The U.S. military issued a statement on the Shula raid, saying that 18 militants had died and that “coalition forces take every precaution to mitigate civilian casualties during engagements with hostile forces.�

North of Baghdad, in Tarmiya, multinational forces reported killing seven gunmen in a raid against suspected insurgents.

The U.S. military reported the death of a soldier in combat near Samarra. The incident brought to 3,725 the number of American soldiers who have died in Iraq since the war began 4 1/2 years ago, according to icasualties.org.

The military also reported that an Iraqi detainee had died at the Camp Cropper detention facility. The suspect, who was not identified, had acute renal failure, the U.S. military said.

Insurgents set off an explosion at a pipeline leading to a suburban Baghdad refinery, sending black smoke over the capital through the day and casting an eerie orange glow on the horizon after dark.

As violence persists, the troop buildup Bush ordered in January has been under scrutiny by both critics and supporters of the war as to whether it can halt Iraq’s slide into civil war.

Although attacks on civilians have dropped in certain Baghdad neighborhoods, militants have continued their operations farther afield.

The deadliest insurgent attack since the March 2003 invasion came in northern Iraq last week, killing as many as 400 members of the minority Yazidi community. This week, there were large-scale assaults on communities in Diyala and Salahuddin provinces, where people have turned on the insurgents.

The climbing U.S. military death toll -- averaging nearly 100 deaths a month this year -- also has intensified the American public’s disenchantment with the war and led to increasing calls to begin bringing the troops home.

U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and the top commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, are to give an assessment to Congress of the stepped-up campaign next month.

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is expected to recommend reducing the nearly 162,000 U.S. deployment by almost half, officials in Washington told The Times.

However, Pace released a statement Friday denying the Times report, saying he and the Joint Chiefs were reviewing a range of options and would deliver any advice on Iraq to Bush privately.

On Thursday, influential Virginia Republican Sen. John W. Warner, a former Navy secretary, added his voice to calls for beginning a withdrawal.

However, Lynch and other U.S. commanders contend that the troop buildup has resulted in better security in Baghdad and more cooperation between Iraqi civilians and local police.

In a video linkup with Pentagon reporters, Lynch, who commands U.S. troops from southern Baghdad to the Saudi border, made it clear that he is against a drawdown.

“In my battle space, if soldiers were to leave . . . having fought hard for that terrain, having denied the enemy their sanctuaries, what would happen is the enemy would come back,� Lynch said. “He’d start building the bombs again. He’d start attacking the locals again. He’d start exporting that violence to Baghdad. We would take a giant step backwards.�

But scattered violence throughout Iraq on Friday underscored the mixed results of the buildup.

In Samarra, about 60 masked gunmen clashed with police for nine hours, leaving an officer, a woman and a child dead in the cross-fire. The insurgents arrived in about 20 vehicles, some with mounted guns, then fanned out to attack four police units and the headquarters.

It was the second day in a row that militants reportedly with Al Qaeda in Iraq had launched a large-scale attack on a Sunni enclave that is cooperating with U.S. and Iraqi forces.

In Kirkuk, a volatile multiethnic city in one of Iraq’s most important oil regions, the bodies of three men were found in a Sunni Arab neighborhood.

Nine bullet-riddled corpses were found in Baghdad overnight, less than half the usual nightly toll.

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Time staff writer Julian E. Barnes in Washington contributed to this report.