A US overnight military attack has killed at least 11 people in Baghdad's Sadr City, despite a ceasefire agreement to end the bloodshed.
Another 20 people were wounded, some of them women and children, medics from Sadr City's Imam Ali and Al-Sadr hospitals said on Tuesday. Sporadic armed clashes have also been reported despite Saturday's ceasefire agreement between the Iraqi government and cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.
The Sadr movement said it was the US military which was violating the truce with its repeated air strikes against the slum district. "We demand that the government stays committed to the deal and stop the repeated violations, especially the continuous US air strikes," Sadr's spokesman in the central city of Najaf, Sheikh Salah al-Obeidi, told AFP. "We are still committed to the deal but for its successful implementation on the ground, the air strikes and artillery shelling must stop. "
Both the Iraqi government and Sadr's movement have said that it will take until Wednesday to fully implement their truce agreement. |