At Least 32 Militants Killed In Western Iraq

(RFE/RL) March 20, 2007-- Iraqi security forces reportedly killed at least 32 militants in a battle in Iraq's western, mostly Sunni Al-Anbar Governorate today.
Iraqi Brigadier General Abd al-Karim Khalaf was quoted as saying the fighting broke out near Al-Fallujah, about 70 kilometers west of Baghdad.

Meanwhile, in Baghdad today four mortar rounds landed in a residential district, killing at least seven people.

Police also announced that they had found some 30 bodies that had been shot around the city on March 19.

Also today, the U.S. military said that two of its troops were killed in a roadside-bomb attack in the Iraqi capital. The military did not say when the attack occurred.

In other developments, the U.S. military said Iraqi insurgents used children in a recent suicide attack.

General Michael Barbero said adults in a vehicle with two children in the back seat were allowed through a Baghdad checkpoint. He said the adults then abandoned the vehicle and detonated it with the children still inside.

(compiled from agency reports)

On The Verge Of Civil War

On The Verge Of Civil War

The Imam Al-Mahdi Army on parade (epa)


HAS THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ BECOME A CIVIL WAR? Many observers have concluded that the tit-for-tat sectarian violence that emerged after the February 2006 bombing of a mosque in Samarra has become a full-blown civil war.... (more)

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