U.S. air strikes killed 10 people in the eastern Baghdad militia stronghold of Sadr City, Iraqi police said on Thursday, but street fighting eased after four days of clashes that have killed close to 90 people.
The Sadr City slum has since Sunday been the focal point of battles between black-masked Mehdi Army militiamen loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and security forces.
An extension of clashes that erupted in late March when Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki cracked down on the militia in the southern city of Basra, the violence has coloured a U.S. election-year debate over troop cuts by highlighting the fragility of recent security gains.
Iraqi police said two separate U.S. air strikes on Thursday morning had killed six people and wounded 10 in Sadr City. Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Stover, a U.S. military spokesman, confirmed two strikes on a suspected rocket site from a drone plane, but said he was unaware of any deaths.
Late on Wednesday, a U.S. helicopter fired two missiles at gunmen in the slum who attacked a joint U.S.-Iraqi security station, killing four, Stover said. Iraqi police and hospital officials said two of the four dead were young boys.
A roadside bomb also killed a U.S. soldier in central Baghdad overnight, raising the U.S. military death toll in Iraq to 20 for April, putting this month on track to be the deadliest for American soldiers since September.
Still, police, the U.S. military and residents said the streets of Sadr City, where most of the fighting this week has taken place, were calmer than in the past four days, when Sadr's militia battled the U.S. and Iraqi military.
NO GREEN ZONE HITS
"The situation is quieter. We are hearing sporadic gunfire and U.S. combat planes have been flying overhead, but the Iraqi military is not in the streets like past days," said Raad al-Humairi, a Sadr City resident.
"Some shops have opened. People buy what they need and then the shops close again."
