More than 50 killed in clashes in Iraq

The U.S. military in Iraq announced today that at least 59 Shiite militants were killed in clashes over the weekend as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice blamed Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr’s militia for violence in Baghdad and the southern port city of Basra.

Rice, on an unannounced visit to the Iraqi capital, praised the Iraqi government for taking on Sadr’s Mahdi Army fighters the day after the cleric warned that continued operations against his militia would spark open warfare. Her trip to Baghdad’s high-security Green Zone, where the Iraqi government and the U.S. Embassy are located, was punctuated by at least three rocket attacks from eastern Baghdad, a stronghold of Sadr’s. One explosion came just minutes before she unveiled a plaque to U.S. Embassy employees who had died in Iraq.

“They want the entire country to be a place where the legitimate security forces of Iraq are in control, not the militias,” Rice said of the Iraqi government and singled out the Mahdi Army for criticism. At least 700 people have died in the fighting in southern Iraq and Baghdad since the Iraqi offensive was launched last month. Rice held Sadr’s militia responsible for chaos in the oil-rich province of Basra and attacks against American and Iraqi forces. “The Jaish al Mahdi and particularly special groups … had completely destroyed law and order in Basra and somebody had to deal with that.”

She blamed Sadr’s militia for the recent unrest in Baghdad. “It’s also the fact you’ve seen attacks even on the Green Zone that have emerged from these forces,” Rice said.

The U.S. military and American diplomats refer to the Mahdi Army’s most radical elements as special groups and accuse them of not obeying Sadr and receiving training and weapons from Iran.

Rice also dismissed Sadr’s threat of open war. “He is still living in Iran.I guess it’s all out war for anybody but him,” she said. “His followers can go to their death and he will still be in Iran.” In recent times, Sadr’s whereabouts have been a mystery. He is believed to have been in Iran in recent months, studying to bolster his religious credentials, but in the last two weeks, rumors have abounded about his return to his home city of Najaf. Sadr movement officials decline to reveal his location.

Rice said the fight against Sadr’s militia was proof of a new political will among Iraq’s ruling Shiite and Kurdish parties. Iraq’s largest Sunni political bloc, which left the government last year, has indicated it might soon return and has backed the current offensives in Baghdad and Basra. “It is indeed a moment of opportunity in Iraq thanks to the courageous decisions taken by the prime minister and a unified Iraqi leadership,” Rice said in remarks after meeting with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

In turn, Sadr officials charge that his rivals in the government want to weaken his movement ahead of provincial elections due in October, in which his followers could emerge victorious. They accuse the government of disregarding Sadr’s efforts to weed out his militia’s bad elements by ordering a cease-fire since August that was shattered in all but name when Prime Minister Nouri Maliki kicked off his Basra campaign on March 24.

As Rice met today with Maliki and other senior partners in the Iraqi government, the Mahdi Army battled with Iraqi and U.S. forces in east Baghdad’s Sadr City.

Witnesses said fighting took place in several residential areas and a U.S. helicopter fired in at least one incident. A roadside bomb exploded as a U.S. army convoy passed through the eastern neighborhood of Baladiyat, leaving one civilian dead and another wounded, police said.

A mortar round landed by a police checkpoint in another area near Sadr City, wounding four officers, while a second roadside bomb in east Baghdad injured three civilians, police said.

The U.S. military confirmed that it had killed seven suspected militia fighters in airstrikes and gun battles Saturday night. U.S. soldiers raided a fire station in Sadr City early this morning, and seized a dozen AK-47 assault rifles, one PKC machine-gun and some ammunition.

This morning, 12 suspected militia fighters died in battle with U.S. forces after they came out of Sadr City to attack a U.S. military outpost in the Adhamiya district this morning, the U.S. military said.

A shootout erupted when Mahdi Army gunmen were caught planting a roadside bomb. During the fighting, the bomb exploded, killing three of the militants and wounding one other. Within hours, U.S. soldiers killed seven militiamen in a shootout involving rocket-propelled grenades and machine-guns. A Stryker armored vehicle supporting the soldiers killed two more fighters.

Fighting also continued in southern Iraq, where Sadr and the government’s main Shiite parties, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and Maliki’s Islamic Dawa Party, are vying for power. Iraqi troops, backed by U.S. Special Forces, killed 40 suspected militants in fighting Saturday in the southern city of Nasiriya, the U.S. military announced today. The military declined to identify them as Mahdi Army members but said they took refuge in an office of the Sadr movement.

Times staff writers Saif Hameed and Raheem Salman contributed to this report.