Eighteen killed in clashes and bombings

US and Iraqi forces clashed with gunmen loyal to radical Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, killing at least eight Iraqis in an east Baghdad slum yesterday.

The clash was certain to heighten tensions between US and Iraqi security forces and followers of al-Sadr, who is building opposition to the country’s new constitution, which will be put to voters in an October 15 referendum.

A suicide car bomber struck an Interior Ministry convoy in Baghdad yesterday, killing seven police commandos and two civilians. Earlier, a bomb mounted on a bicycle blew apart a music store in Hillah, south of the capital, killing one, officials said.

The attack on the three-vehicle convoy of commandos also wounded 19 people, including at least 11 members of the elite unit, said Capt Nabil Abdel-Qader.

The bombing in Hillah, a mixed Sunni-Shi’ite city about 60 miles south of Baghdad, wounded 48 people, said Dr Mazen Abdul-Sada of Hillah General Hospital.

Ultraconservative religious figures have deemed some music on sale in the country offensive to their interpretation of Islam.

The fighting in Baghdad’s Sadr City, an eastern Shi’ite slum, erupted before dawn. Police Major Falah al-Mohamadawi said a US patrol came under fire as it entered the district to arrest members of the al-Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to al-Sadr. US forces returned fire, killing at least eight Shi’ite gunmen and wounding five, he said.

However, Shi’ite cleric Amer al-Hussainy, a top al-Sadr aide in Baghdad, said only three gunmen were killed. The five other deaths were civilians - including a woman - struck by stray rounds, he said.

US military officials would not say whether fighting occurred in Sadr City. Master Sgt Greg Kaufman said a joint US-Iraqi patrol came under fire and there were several “engagements” in the area.

The clash introduced another potential obstacle to Shi’ite unity on the constitution just three weeks before the nationwide referendum.

* On Saturday, demonstrators opposed to the war in Iraq surged past the White House in the largest anti-war protest in the nation’s capital since the US invasion. The rally stretched through the night, a marathon of music, speechmaking and dissent on the mall.

In the crowd were young activists, nuns whose anti-war activism dates to Vietnam, parents mourning their children lost in Iraq, and uncountable families motivated for the first time to protest.