Clashes kill 22 in Baghdad

[laststeamtrain]

Source: Reuters/Globe & Mail

Clashes kill 22 in Baghdad

NOAH BARKIN

Reuters

April 6, 2008 at 9:57 AM EDT

BAGHDAD — Twenty-two people were killed and 55 wounded in clashes in Baghdad, police said on Sunday, the worst eruption of violence in the capital since Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called his fighters off the streets a week ago.

Near the northern city of Mosul, a group of roughly 40 students were kidnapped by gunmen for several hours before Iraqi security forces freed them.

The violence in Mr. al-Sadr's Baghdad stronghold, the Shiite slum of Sadr City, follows a week of relative calm after clashes throughout the south and Shiite neighbourhoods of the capital.

It comes only days before U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker and U.S. commander General David Petraeus are due to deliver key testimony to the U.S. Congress on progress in Iraq.

Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080406.wiraq0406/BNStory/International/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20080406.wiraq0406

[mac2]

1. General "BetrayUs"

says things are a bit more complicated than they planned. DA! Get out and don't "surge" the lies anymore.

[High Plains]

2. Clashes don't kill people; people do.