U.S. strikes militant holdout in Sadr City

[unhappycamper]

U.S. strikes militant holdout in Sadr City
By Bradley Brooks - The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday May 4, 2008 10:16:47 EDT

BAGHDAD — The U.S. military fired guided missiles into the heart of Baghdad’s teeming Sadr City slum, leveling a building 50 yards away from a hospital and wounding nearly two dozen people.

Separately, the U.S. military said late Saturday that four Marines were killed on Friday by a roadside bomb in Anbar province. No other details were released and the names of the Marines were withheld pending notification of their families.

AP Television News footage showed several ambulances destroyed and on fire, thick black smoke rising from them as firefighters worked to put out the flames.

The strike on Saturday, made from a ground launcher, took out a militant “command-control center,” the U.S. military said. The center was located in the heart of the eight-square-mile neighborhood that is home to about 2.5 million people. Iraqi officials said at least 23 people were wounded, though none of them were patients in the hospital.

The U.S. military blamed the militants for using Iraqi civilians as human shields.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/05/ap_iraq_attacks_050408/