At least 24 die as Iraqi troops, civilians repel Baghdad attack

In signs of continued instability in Baghdad, suspected Al Qaeda in Iraq insurgents launched a surprise attack on Iraqi troops and armed civilians in the southern part of the capital Thursday, sparking a fierce battle that left at least two dozen people dead, Iraqi army sources and local Sunni leaders said.

In separate attacks later in the day, police said, insurgents fired 10 mortar rounds at the city’s heavily fortified Green Zone, where the U.S. Embassy and many Iraqi government offices are located. There were no reports of casualties.

Together, the incidents underscored the tenuous state of security in Baghdad, where U.S. and Iraqi officials lately have been heralding weeks of relative calm as evidence of a turnabout in the capital’s sectarian warfare.

On Sunday, the U.S. military said attacks in Iraq had dropped 55% since June, when the last of 28,500 additional American troops sent as part of a security clampdown arrived. It said civilian deaths in Baghdad had plummeted 75% since that time.

Thursday’s display of aggression toward the Green Zone followed several weeks of calm in the enclave, which in turn followed months of almost daily bombardments.

Jihad abu Ali, a local Sunni Arab leader who said his group of armed civilians, known as Concerned Citizens, took part in Thursday’s fighting against the insurgents in south Baghdad, said about 70 insurgents attacked the Hur Rijab area, using rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons.

Abu Ali told The Times that four of his fighters were slain, along with three Iraqi army soldiers and at least five civilians. He said his fighters killed 15 to 20 insurgents.

Other reports put the number of Iraqi security force fatalities at eight. The U.S. military said some Iraqi forces and Abu Ali’s group sustained casualties in the fighting, but it did not give a number. A military statement put the number of insurgent deaths at two.

“They attacked our checkpoints, Iraqi army checkpoints and civilians’ houses,” said Abu Ali, who leads Sunnis who once fought alongside Al Qaeda in Iraq but have since joined forces with the Iraqi army and the U.S. military. “They burned some Iraqi army vehicles and took control of two Iraqi army Humvees that they used in the battle.”

The brazen confrontation highlighted the challenges that the Iraqi army and U.S.-led forces still face.

“From our standpoint, the war is not over, and the security situation . . . requires additional hard work and sacrifice,” Lt. Gen. James Dubik, who oversees training of Iraqi security forces, said at a news briefing Wednesday in Baghdad.

The area of the violence, on Baghdad’s southern edge, has proved to be one of the most difficult for U.S. and Iraqi forces to secure. Sunni insurgents loyal to Al Qaeda in Iraq months ago established a foothold in the region, which includes the notorious Dora neighborhood.

U.S. forces say they have made huge progress in pushing insurgents out of Dora, but militants are trying to reclaim territory lost since the U.S. military buildup in the capital this year.

Abu Ali said Thursday’s battle lasted about three hours, and his group “fought on the same side of the Iraqi army from different angles against Qaeda, and we were able to kill 15, 20 of them before we forced them to run away.”

He said the assistance his fighters had hoped to get from U.S. forces was not immediately forthcoming.

“Their choppers came after everything was finished, and they did not support us,” Abu Ali said. “We were in very desperate need of their air coverage.”

Mustafa Kamil, another local Sunni leader who has aligned with coalition forces, said more fighters rushed to the scene to battle the insurgents, whose arsenal included antiaircraft machine guns mounted on vehicles.

A U.S. military statement said American forces firing from helicopters killed two insurgents and that an F-16 dropped a 500-pound bomb on a vehicle carrying weapons.

Kamil said many of the insurgents managed to escape.

“They are masters of escape and hiding,” he said.

Violence also shattered the calm in other parts of the country Thursday. In the northern city of Mosul, a bomb in a parked car targeting an Iraqi police patrol exploded, killing two civilians and wounding 12 others, according to police officials there.

In Samawah, the capital of Muthanna province in southern Iraq, the U.S. military officially apologized to provincial leaders for a shooting Nov. 18 in which American troops fired on civilian vehicles. At least two people were injured in the incident. Police and witnesses said the convoy of five U.S. Humvees fired without being provoked. The military said it was investigating.

Meanwhile, many U.S. troops stationed in Iraq were celebrating Thanksgiving here for the second or third time.

The mess hall at Camp Liberty at Baghdad’s airport was decorated with a giant wooden boat, representing the Mayflower. Other decorations included sculptures of Babylonian cats, gingerbread houses with roofs made of Oreo cookies and licorice, and a life-sized butter sculpture of a soldier.

Shiny blue bottles of sparkling white grape juice adorned tables. Contract workers carved turkey and doled out stuffing, steak and lobster tails. At least a dozen cakes smothered with red, white and turquoise icing complemented the feast.

Army Capt. Jay Ireland, 26, from Phoenix, was spending his second Thanksgiving in Baghdad. Last year, he said, things were so busy that someone had to remind him of the holiday. He was overwhelmed then by the task of ordering body bags for slain Iraqis that troops were finding in the western Amiriya neighborhood.

This year, he said, he knew it was Thanksgiving -- an indication of the quieter state of the capital.

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ann.simmons@latimes.com

tina.susman@latimes.com

Times staff writers Saif Rasheed, Saif Hameed and Ned Parker in Baghdad and special correspondents in Baghdad, Mosul and Samawah contributed to this report.