Troops Quell Fierce Fighting in Baghdad

Iraq’s prime minister on Friday tightened an already draconian security clampdown in the capital in an attempt to restore order as Iraqi and American forces subdued clashes between Shiite and Sunni Arab gunmen.

Many frightened residents found themselves cut off from their homes when Prime Minister Nouri Maliki declared a state of emergency and ordered civilians off the streets until 6 a.m. today, virtually shutting down the city.

As the gun battle near the capital’s center abated, the government shortened the curfew, ending it at 5 p.m. to allow residents, who already face a midday vehicle ban on Fridays, to return home.

The intense fighting, which left four Shiite militiamen dead, and the chaos caused by the tightened security measures plunged Baghdad into gloom and underscored the hurdles the Iraqi government faces in its efforts to curb the sectarian and insurgent violence.

A security plan launched June 14 to curb clashes in the capital has had little effect, and bloodshed elsewhere has not abated, with dozens killed across Iraq on Friday.

U.S. military officials said two service members were killed when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb southeast of Baghdad. The military also announced the deaths of three other American service members in the last few days.

A bomb exploded near a Sunni mosque in a religiously mixed agricultural town northeast of Baghdad, killing at least 10 worshipers.

In the southern city of Basra, a suicide car bomber struck drivers lined up to buy gasoline, leaving 11 dead.

The clashes in Baghdad began when members of Al Mahdi army, a Shiite militia, gathered to march through a Sunni Arab neighborhood to the Bratha Mosque for afternoon prayer services. The Shiite mosque was the site of a suicide bombing last week that killed at least 12 worshipers.

Local gunmen opened fire on the militiamen as they made their way through the Sunni area, killing four, police said. The two groups exchanged fire and cars were set ablaze.

Iraqi and American troops were dispatched to the area, and the battle continued along notoriously dangerous Haifa Street, near the U.S.-controlled Green Zone. Officials said three Iraqi police officers and five Iraqi soldiers were wounded in the fighting.

A Defense Ministry official said the Iraqi troops confronted 20 militiamen brandishing AK-47s and handguns despite a weapons ban.

“The clashes lasted for two hours with the gunmen,” Brig. Gen. Qassim Mossawi said in an interview. “During the clashes, the mosques in the neighborhoods were calling through loudspeakers for calming down and respecting the rituals of Friday prayers.”

By late Friday, the huge security presence and extended curfew had quieted the area.

The prime minister’s emergency declaration came nine days after authorities implemented security measures that included a ban on vehicular traffic between 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Fridays, to curb attacks on mosques. The thousands of troops that have been deployed throughout Baghdad have set up hundreds of checkpoints, snarling traffic.

The Sunni mosque north of Baghdad was struck as worshipers were leaving after prayers. Besides those killed, at least 16 people were wounded.

Police said the bomb was hidden in a plastic bag and exploded a short distance from the mosque in the village of Hibhib, where U.S. forces killed Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab Zarqawi on June 7.

“I ran out to see what’s going on, and at the mosque gate there were seven or eight bodies thrown on the ground,” said a 29-year-old engineer who lives nearby. He declined to give his name. “Those who did this, did it to provoke sectarian sedition. They targeted innocent people, such as the poor guards who volunteered to guard the house of God.”

The suicide bomber who struck in Basra injured 20 people, police and witnesses said.

Authorities in the northern city of Mosul reported that 25 Iraqis, most of them Kurds, had been shot execution-style over the last two days.

The victims were found in different parts of the city and included five police officers, seven Iraqi army soldiers, two ex-officers and 10 merchants, a morgue official said.

A spokesman for the U.S. military did not immediately identify the two American soldiers killed earlier in the day southeast of Baghdad.

The military said two of the other three slain military personnel were Marines. A spokesman said one Marine died Thursday during operations in the western province of Al Anbar and another died Wednesday in the same area.

A Baghdad-based soldier died Wednesday in a noncombat incident, the U.S. spokesman said.

The deaths raise to at least 2,517 the number of U.S. troops who have died since the Iraq war began, according to an Associated Press count.

Iraqi forces also said Friday that they had found the bullet-riddled bodies of five factory workers who were among those kidnapped Wednesday in Taji, a town 20 miles north of Baghdad, by a group of gunmen.

The bodies were found in a canal north of Baghdad, with their hands and legs bound, and bore signs of torture, police said.

About 30 people remained missing two days after the kidnappings.

Abductions have become increasingly common in recent weeks, many of them sectarian-driven and often for ransom. In the case of the factory workers, the kidnappers released Sunni Arabs, along with women and children.

And police in Kirkuk announced a successful raid Friday to free a woman who had been kidnapped. Police said the woman was abducted by a gang that targeted women in the northern city.

Meanwhile, the American military said it killed four foreign insurgents in a raid north of the Sunni stronghold of Fallouja, in Al Anbar. The military said two of them had bombs strapped to their bodies.

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Times staff writer Saif Hameed and special correspondents in Baqubah, Basra and Mosul contributed to this report.