American and Iraqi forces fended off an assault early Sunday in the southern city of Diwaniyah, where the Iraqi army fought a major battle with Shiite Muslim militias in August, the U.S. Army said.
A statement from the Army said 30 militants were killed, and a spokeswoman for the Multinational Corps in Iraq said Sunday night that helicopter crew members supporting the ground units had counted the dead.
However, Iraqi witnesses to the early-morning firefight said three to seven people were injured and none killed.
The U.S. military statement said an M-1 Abrams tank was severely damaged by rocket-propelled grenades, but no U.S. or Iraqi soldiers were killed or injured in the fighting.
Ten Iraqis were detained, including one described as “a high-value target,” the military said. The suspect was believed to have been involved in the execution-style slayings of several Iraqi soldiers who had run out of ammunition during the Aug. 28 battle, which left 25 Iraqi soldiers dead.
There were conflicting versions on the extent of the fighting Sunday and its cause.
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Local followers of anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr downplayed the incident, saying that his al-Mahdi Army was not involved.
“We do not want to retaliate because Moqtada Sadr ordered an unarmed retaliation with no bloodshed,” said Mohammed Abdul Hassan, a Sadr follower on Qadisiya province’s governing council.
Some Sadr adherents said residents of Diwaniyah were not expecting raids during the holy month of Ramadan and reacted by opening fire on the troops.
The Army said a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol went into the city in the early morning to detain the “high-value target,” who was not named. The patrol came under attack by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades.
Up to 10 teams of militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades attacked the tank, and members of six teams were killed, the Army said. Soldiers secured the area while the tank was recovered. Additional Iraqi soldiers continued the mission and arrested the suspect, the statement said.
Brig. Gen. Othamn Ghanim, commander of the Iraqi 8th Army Division, said the fighting started when a roadside bomb hit the convoy.
Witnesses said the town was placed under a curfew after the shooting had stopped. Hassan, the Sadr follower, said the curfew was lifted by the evening and that the U.S. and Iraqi forces were gone Sunday night.
Tension has remained high in the city, 90 miles south of Baghdad, since the August battle. Members of Sadr’s group, many of whom hold positions in local government, complain that U.S. patrols have come almost nightly to search houses and arrest residents suspected of being involved in that battle.
“U.S. forces conduct raids on houses and make people really angry at them,” said Saleem Abid, the media officer in Sadr’s group in Qadisiya province.
The U.S. Army also reported Sunday that two American soldiers were killed Saturday. One, attached to the Multinational Division in Baghdad, was killed in a northwest neighborhood of the capital when his patrol was attacked with small-arms fire. The other, from the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, was killed in Mosul by an explosive device.
Also Sunday, the parliament voted to strip one of its members of immunity, allowing his prosecution on corruption charges.
Mishaan Jaburi, chief of the Reconciliation and Liberation bloc, was accused of embezzling money meant for oil line security. Jaburi has fled the country.
A curfew in place since Friday in Kirkuk was lifted after a U.S. and Iraqi military sweep in the northern city. Maj. Gen. Khalil Zawbai of the Iraqi army said the operation netted 184 terrorism suspects as well as about 450 firearms and explosives.
Violence continued throughout the country over the weekend, claiming dozens of lives.
The Baghdad morgue reported receiving the bodies of 51 men, ages 25 to 50, who were found in the city from early Saturday to early Sunday.
An Iraqi Interior Ministry official put the number of people killed Sunday in Baghdad at 35, most turning up as unidentified bodies.