BAGHDAD, Iraq – U.S. troops handed over medical supplies to Iraqi relief workers Friday amid a siege of a northeastern ethnic Turkish city where Iraqi and American forces are trying to root out hundreds of militants.
Despite criticism from Turkey and Shiite leaders, U.S. commanders insisted they will maintain their blockade of Tal Afar for as long as it takes to subdue what they said were foreign fighters holed up there. The campaign was part of a recently launched American effort to restore government authority to lawless areas of the country – either through negotiation or by force.
“We are going to apply the necessary pressure to make sure that we are able to root out the enemy,” said Lt. Col. Paul Hastings, spokesman for the Army’s Task Force Olympia. “How long it takes is really dependent on them.”
In Baghdad’s sprawling Sadr City slum, meanwhile, fighting resumed between U.S. forces and militants loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, wounding seven Iraqis, hospital officials said.
Elsewhere, about 1,000 protesters marched through Najaf’s old quarter demanding that the cleric and his aides leave the devastated holy city, raising tensions a day after a 60-member Iraqi force raided his offices.
The demonstrators – who chanted, “Muqtada, the trash, is a leader of looters!” – walked past buildings wrecked by weeks of fighting that ended with last month’s peace deal, insisting that al-Sadr’s office be shut down.
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