BAGHDAD – U.S. and Iraqi forces blocked access to a town on the northeast outskirts of Baghdad where Shiite gunmen were dug in for a third day Monday behind earthen barriers. Police issued calls for residents to leave the town, and some said they were running out of food and fuel.
The blockade of Husseiniyah came as at least 16 people died when four car bombs rocked the center of the capital. Three of the blasts took place in one 30-minute span, as the relentless Baghdad summer sun pushed temperatures to 115 degrees.
Police, morgue and hospital officials reported a total of at least 59 people killed or found dead nationwide, and the American military announced the deaths of three soldiers and a Marine.
At least 3,636 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
The Shiite-dominated parliament said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki should intervene to end the crackdown by U.S. and Iraqi forces on Husseiniyah. The town is a stronghold of the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and straddles the highway to Baqouba, where U.S. forces are in the second month of a drive to cleanse that region of al-Qaida in Iraq.
Trouble broke out in Husseiniyah when U.S. forces took small-arms fire shortly before midnight Friday and ordered an airstrike on the building from which the gunmen were shooting. The military said helicopters fired missiles at the building and three gunmen fled to a second building.
U.S. aircraft then bombed the second structure, setting off at least seven secondary blasts believed caused by explosives and munitions stored inside the building, the military said, adding that Iraqi police told American forces six militants were killed and five wounded.
The military account cont radicted reports from Iraqi police and hospital officials. Those officials said 18 civilians had been killed and 21 wounded in the attacks at 2 a.m. Saturday.
U.S. military deaths
The latest identifications reported by the U.S. military of personnel killed in Iraq.
Army Sgt. 1st Class Luis E. Gutierrez-Rosales, 38, Bakersfield, Calif.; Army Spc. Zachary R. Clouser, 19, Dover, Pa.; Army Spc. Richard Gilmore III, 22, Jasper, Ala.; and Army Spc. Daniel E. Gomez, 21, Warner Robbins, Ga.; killed Wednesday by explosives and small-arms fire in Adhamiyah; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Schweinfurt, Germany.
Cpl. Rhett A. Butler, 22, Fort Worth, Texas; died Friday after his vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Khan Bani Sa’d; assigned to 2nd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team), Fort Lewis.
Sgt. Jacob S. Schmuecker, 27, Atkinson, Neb., died Saturday in Balad after his vehicle struck a roadside bomb; assigned to the 755th Recon/Decon Company, Nebraska Army National Guard, Oneill, Neb.
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