Overnight fighting in Sadr City; area closed off

(11 Aug 2004)

Overnight 10/11 August
Night shots
1. Gunfire with tracer bullets visible
2. Lights on horizon
3. Fighter loads mortar and fires UPSOUND: "Pray to Mohammed, long live Muqtada and curse his enemy"
4. Militia fighter firing machine gun
5. Man carrying rocket-propelled grenade launcher UPSOUND: "We will not be humiliated again"
6. Insurgents chanting, UPSOUND: shell fire
7. Flashing lights on horizon

11 August
Day shots
8. US military crane lifts block in to place
9. Various of soldiers beside tank
10. Blocks being lifted into place
11. Iraqi soldier in back of vehicle
12. Wide of military crane
13. Road blocks being lowered
14. Various of Iraqi troops searching car
15. Donkey cart on road leaving Sadr City
16. Barbed wire across highway, sign indicating Sadr City
17. People crossing waste land to leave Sadr City
18. Checkpoint

STORYLINE:

Fighting continued overnight in Baghdad's eastern Sadr City district between US forces and militants loyal to the radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army engaged US forces with weapons including mortars and AK-47 assault rifles.

On Wednesday morning US troops began to close roads into the mainly Shia neighbourhood.

Soldiers accompanied by armoured vehicles could be seen lifting concrete barriers into place in al-Habibiyah, a neighbourhood bordering Sadr City.

As the barriers came down, residents tried to leave the suburb, evading the newly-placed blocks.

There have been several days of clashes between al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia and occupying forces in a number of Shiite strongholds in Baghdad and southern Iraq.

Al-Sadr claims the US military has violated a series of truces that ended a two-month Shiite uprising in early June.

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