U.S. targets Shiite militants

U.S. aircraft and troops on Wednesday fired on Shiite Muslim militants suspected of being armed and trained by Iran, leaving up to 32 people dead in east Baghdad’s volatile neighborhood of Sadr City.

The raid came as Prime Minister Nouri Maliki visited Tehran to discuss ways to bring security to Iraq. The violence also occurred the day before Iraq’s Shiite majority marked a major religious ceremony and as a vehicle ban went into effect in Baghdad to stave off bloodshed during the holiday.

The U.S. military said it killed 32 members of an offshoot of radical cleric Muqtada Sadr’s Al Mahdi militia in its latest strike against militant Shiite splinter groups that target American forces and that American officials believe are proxies for Tehran. Iran denies any involvement in violence in Iraq.

A local police official speaking on condition of anonymity said nine people were killed, at least two of them women. The toll was later updated to 10.

Iraqi officials, including some close to the prime minister, also believe Iran has been supplying weapons to Sadr-affiliated armed groups. The Maliki government has signed off on the almost daily raids of Shiite strongholds to kill or capture what it and U.S. officials have called rogue elements of Sadr’s militia.

Maliki had denounced a similar strike on Sadr City last month that resulted in a high number of civilian casualties, but on Wednesday his government issued no comments.

Some residents in Sadr City, a Shiite slum largely controlled by the Al Mahdi militia, described watching as civilians were struck down, but a U.S. military spokesman insisted later that soldiers had killed only fighters.

The raid targeted the so-called Iraqi Special Groups, an armed faction that American officials say is backed by Iran. Since spring, the Americans have waged a campaign in the impoverished residential area, home to more than 2.5 million people, as the U.S. forces seek to weaken Sadr’s armed followers.

The early morning strike targeted a network that the military said was responsible for smuggling weapons, including explosives from Iran that can penetrate armored vehicles. The military accused the group of taking fighters to Iran for training. Twelve men were detained in the operation, a military statement said.

U.S. and Iraqi forces came under sporadic fire when they raided a building, shot two armed guards to death and detained suspects, the military said. When militia reinforcements started to arrive, the statement said, fighter jets and combat helicopters struck, claiming the lives of 30 more militants.

A woman who gave her name only as Asmaa said she had been sleeping on her roof with her parents and siblings and watched as U.S. soldiers swarmed the area.

“As long as the U.S. soldiers moved around the roof watching the surrounding houses, my father kept screaming at us to stay flat in bed and never move,” she said. An American sniper on her roof shot a neighbor who had moved to pick up a cellphone and the casing landed on her leg, she added.

She said she watched as soldiers detained her father and two brothers. She insisted they were innocent and had nothing to do with the Al Mahdi militia.

“We went down after them but the soldiers were still shouting at us to stay up. Then, the U.S. soldiers tore out the curtains” and blindfolded the three, she said.

The U.S. military said the raid was the latest in a series since June that focused on the Iraqi Special Groups. The main target Wednesday was a suspect who allegedly served as a link between the Special Groups and the Quds Force, the elite international branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

The penetrating explosives, thought to be used predominantly by Shiite militants, are viewed by the U.S. military as one of the gravest threats in Iraq. They were used against U.S. forces 99 times in July, an all-time high, and killed 23 soldiers during the month, a military spokesman said.

The explosive shoots off a molten copper slug that can burst through a Humvee or a Stryker vehicle’s armor.

The U.S. military has managed in the last two months to cut deals with many Sunni Arabs who formerly fought the Americans and now want to battle insurgents affiliated with the group Al Qaeda in Iraq. Meanwhile, Shiite extremists carried out 73% of all attacks in July that killed or wounded U.S. forces in Baghdad, the military spokesman said.

Despite the strike, Maliki went ahead with his meetings in Tehran with Iran’s senior leadership. Officials from the two governments were expected to discuss ways to improve security in Iraq, as well as implementation of agreements under which Iran is providing more electricity and fuel to Iraq.

Meanwhile, vehicle traffic was banned in the capital ahead of today’s annual ceremony at the shrine of Imam Musa al Kadhim, one of 12 major saints in Shiite Islam. Last year, snipers fired at pilgrims en route to the shrine in northwest Baghdad, killing about 20 people.

In 2005, panic among the crowd of tens of thousands triggered a stampede that left nearly 1,000 people dead.

Pilgrims filled the streets of north Baghdad on Wednesday night as they headed into the Kadhimiya neighborhood, home to the shrine. Some wore green headbands, or toted green, red and black flags as they walked past tables covered with glasses of water.

Some merchants stood beside the throngs, spraying water from hoses to cool those who passed. Multicolored lanterns and signs bore the imam’s image.

Iraqi security forces were stationed every hundred yards along the route, directing the occasional water truck.

In other developments, the U.S. military announced that a soldier was killed and four others were wounded Tuesday in a bomb blast in west Baghdad. The death raised to 3,681 the number of American troops who have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, according to the website icasualties.org.

A bomber blew himself up in a barbershop in the Khatoon district of Baqubah, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. U.S. and Iraqi forces reclaimed the city from Sunni extremist groups affiliated with Al Qaeda in June, police said.

The shop was believed to have given Western-style haircuts, making it a prime target for Sunni militants, one witness said.

Eleven bodies were found in Baghdad. All but one were discovered on the city’s western side. At least 15 other people died in attacks around the country.

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ned.parker@latimes.com

Times staff writers Zeena Kareem, Saif Hameed, Said Rifai and Molly Hennessy-Fiske contributed to this report.