Iraq Shi'ites accuse US troops of killing worshippers in raid

A video grab shows bodies lying on the floor at a mosque in the Shaab district of eastern Baghdad. Picture / Reuters

BAGHDAD - Politicians from Iraq's Shi'ite majority accused US troops of massacring 20 worshippers at a Baghdad mosque on Sunday but police and residents said many died in clashes between Shi'ite militia fighters and Americans.

US military spokesmen declined comment on the accusations but issued a statement describing a raid by Iraqi special forces, with US advisers, on a building that was not a mosque in roughly the same area. It said 16 insurgents were killed.

Police said US forces clashed with the Mehdi Army militia of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, killing 20 fighters.

With Baghdad under night curfew it was impossible to pin down what happened. But unusually strident anti-US coverage on government-run state television showed a fierce confrontation between the ruling Shi'ite Islamists and the US administration.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said the premier was "deeply concerned" and had called the US commander in Iraq, General George Casey, who said there would be a full inquiry.

Also on Sunday, US forces arrested 41 officials from the Shi'ite-controlled Interior Ministry and freed 17 foreigners from a secret jail, government, political and US sources said.

Northeast of Baghdad, Iraqi troops found 30 bodies, many of them beheaded, on a village street. And in the same area around Baquba, police arrested one of their own majors, the brother of the regional police chief, over Shi'ite death squad killings.

The events came as Washington raises pressure on the Shi'ites to bring minority Sunnis into government -- it is even planning landmark talks with hostile Shi'ite Iran to break the impasse. Many fear a failure of the plan could plunge Iraq into civil war.

Iraqiya state television carried lengthy footage of the bloodied corpses of men in civilian clothes, in a room where no weapons were visible, calling them victims of US gunfire.

"American forces raid and burn Mustafa mosque. A number of citizens martyred inside," it said in an on-screen headline.

One dead man had a membership card from Jaafari's Dawa party. Jaafari ally Jawad al-Maliki condemned a US "policy of aggression". Leading aides to Sadr denounced the US troops.

Sadr aide Hazim al-Araji later said: "We are calling for calm ... "We do not want to be dragged to a third war."

Though supposedly disbanded in 2004 after two uprisings were crushed by US forces, the Mehdi Army remains a significant force, along with other pro-government militias which Sunnis accuse of running death squads against them.

Since 2004, Sadr, with apparent Iranian backing has become a virtual kingmaker within the dominant Shi'ite Alliance bloc - he crucially is backing Jaafari to remain prime minister despite opposition from Sunnis, Kurds and some Alliance rivals.

Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, at the heart of urgent US efforts to forge a unity government, said on Saturday the militias must be brought to heel and accused them of killing more people over the last few weeks than Sunni rebel bombings.

Reprisal attacks after the destruction of a Shi'ite shrine a month ago killed hundreds, though Sadr and other Shi'ite leaders called publicly for restraint among their armed followers.

Residents in the Shaab district of northeastern Baghdad said they saw and heard heavy clashes between US troops and gunmen they believed were from the Mehdi Army, close to the Sadr-linked Mustafa mosque. US helicopters were overhead they said.

Police sources said they understood that US troops had raided an area around the mosque and got into a gun battle with the Mehdi Army that left about 20 militiamen dead.

Sadr aides said troops killed unarmed people: "The American forces went into Mustafa mosque at prayers and killed more than 20 worshippers," Araji said. "They tied them up and shot them."

Transport Minister Salem al-Maliki, from Sadr's group, said: "This was part of an escalation programme to drag Sadr's group into another battle or to obstruct the political process."

After declining requests to respond to the allegations, the US military issued a statement saying Iraqi special forces, along with US advisers, killed 16 "insurgents" in Aadhamiya, next to Shaab, and detained 15. The statement denied any mosque was entered and said a foreign, non-Western hostage was freed.

After the statement was issued, US spokesmen declined to elaborate or say if the raid was close to the Mustafa mosque.

There was also mystery over the details of the raid on the Interior Ministry facility, which one political source described as an Education Ministry warehouse in central Baghdad.

A US source confirmed American and Iraqi forces seized 41 Interior Ministry personnel and free 17 foreigners at a secret jail complex. There was no detail on their identities. Many foreign Muslims are accused of being Sunni al Qaeda sympathisers.

Nor were the identities of those arrested clear. Shi'ite militias are accused of infiltrating the Interior Ministry.

In November, US troops freed 173 prisoners, some of them tortured, from a secret Interior Ministry facility in Baghdad.

- REUTERS