Four Iraqis killed in hunt for US soldier
Source: Reuters
(Adds U.S. military statement) BAGHDAD, Nov 23 (Reuters) - U.S. troops hunting a kidnapped American soldier opened fire on a minibus, killing four passengers, during a raid on a Shi'ite militia stronghold in Baghdad on Thursday, police and residents said. The U.S. military said in a statement that Iraqi special forces and U.S. military advisers had detained five suspected members of a kidnap cell in the early morning operation in the sprawling slum of Sadr City in the east of the capital. "A vehicle displaying hostile intent was identified as an immediate threat to Iraqi forces. Iraqi forces fired on the vehicle to neutralize the threat," the military said. U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Garver told Reuters the minibus had ignored warning shots. Police and residents said earlier that U.S. forces had fired the deadly shots. Residents said the passengers were workers and not militants. The four dead were three young men and an older man, television pictures showed. Eight people were also wounded when the vehicle was hit by a burst of machinegun fire, residents said, some of whom gathered around the minibus to look at its blood-drenched interior. "Maliki is a son of a dog," one man shouted angrily, referring to Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, whose government is under pressure to reduce rampant sectarian and insurgent violence that kills thousands each month. About 3,000 U.S. and Iraqi forces have launched a hunt in Baghdad for an Iraqi-born U.S. soldier who was kidnapped on Oct. 23 after leaving the safety of the government's Green Zone to visit his wife and family. They have concentrated efforts on Sadr City, a stronghold of Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militiamen who are blamed for some of the worst violence in the capital, including last week's mass kidnap at a government ministry. On Tuesday, four people were killed, including a baby, in a U.S. air strike during a raid on Sadr City to seize seven men suspected of involvement in the kidnapping of the U.S. soldier, Specialist Ahmed Altaie.
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