20 U.S. service members killed in Iraq

By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press

At least 20 American service personnel were killed in military
operations Saturday in one of the deadliest days for U.S. forces since
the Iraq war began, and authorities also announced two U.S. combat
deaths from the previous day.

The day's worst loss came from the crash of a U.S. Army helicopter
northeast of Baghdad that killed 13 service members. An attack Saturday
night blamed on militiamen in the city of Karbala killed five soldiers.
Roadside bombs killed another soldier in the capital and one in Nineveh
province north of Baghdad.

The military gave little information on the crash of the Black Hawk
during good weather in Diyala province, where U.S. and Iraqi forces have
been battling Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias around the city of
Baqouba for months.

Lt. Col. Josslyn Aberle, a U.S. spokeswoman, said the cause of the crash
had not been determined. Navy Capt. Frank Pascual, a member of a U.S.
media relations team in the United Arab Emirates, told Al-Arabiya
television that the helicopter was believed to have suffered technical
troubles before going down.

It was the fourth deadliest crash since the war started in March 2003.
The worst occurred Jan. 26, 2005, when a Marine transport helicopter
went down during a sandstorm in the western desert. Thirty Marines and
one sailor were killed — the most U.S. personnel to die in a single
incident in Iraq.

The U.S. military later reported that militia fighters attacked a
provincial headquarters in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Karbala,
killing five American soldiers and wounding three Saturday night.

The statement said "an illegally armed militia group" attacked the
building with grenades, small arms and "indirect fire," which usually
means mortars or rockets.

"A meeting was taking place at the time of the attack to ensure the
security of Shiite pilgrims participating in the Ashoura
commemorations," said a statement from Brig. Gen. Vincent K. Brooks,
deputy commander of the Multi-National Division-Baghdad.

Karbala is 50 miles south of Baghdad and thousands of Shiite pilgrims
are flocking to the city to mark the 10-day Ashoura festival
commemorating the death of one of Shiite Islam's most sacred saints,
Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.

Brooks said Iraqi officials and security forces as well as U.S. troops
were present at the meeting, but his statement did not mention other
casualties from the attack. It said the headquarters had "been secured
by coalition and Iraqi security forces."

Earlier, Karbala Gov. Akeel al-Khazaali had reported that U.S. troops
raided the provincial headquarters looking for wanted men but left with
no prisoners. But Brooks said that report was incorrect.

The general did not identify any group suspected of staging the attack,
but residents reached by telephone had reported seeing military
helicopters flying over the local headquarters of radical Shiite cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr.

Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, which has been accused of playing a big
role in sectarian killings, has been hit repeatedly in recent weeks by
operations in which key commanders have been captured or killed by U.S.
and Iraqi troops.

Also Saturday, the U.S. military announced that combat Friday had killed
an Army soldier in Nineveh province and a Marine in Anbar province, a
Sunni insurgent stronghold west of the capital.

The crash and other deaths come at a critical time for U.S. forces, as
the first of 21,500 reinforcements are arriving in Baghdad and
surrounding areas to join a campaign that President Bush and Iraqi Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki are waging to curb sectarian slaughter.

In south Baghdad, U.S. helicopters dropped Iraqi police commandos into
the dangerous Dora neighborhood to stage a raid on the Omar Brigade, an
al-Qaida-linked Sunni militant group, Interior Ministry spokesman
Abdul-Karim Khalaf said.

Khalaf said 15 insurgents were killed and five captured during an
intense battle at two abandoned houses taken over by Sunni gunmen, who
he blamed for a series of kidnappings and killings in a bid to cleanse
the once-mixed neighborhood of Shiite residents.

"We were provided with helicopter support by our friends in the
multinational forces and we did not suffer any casualties," Khalaf said.
U.S. aircraft gave covering fire, but the U.S. military did not respond
to a request for comment on the raid.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, Iraqi police and hospital officials said a joint
U.S.-Iraqi force searched a hospital in the volatile Sunni-dominated
western neighborhood of Yarmouk.

Dr. Haqi Ismail, the hospital manager, said the raid occurred at 4:30 a.m.

"They were looking for someone, they searched all the rooms and the
emergency unit," he said.

Al-Sadr's followers voiced increasing anger over Friday's capture of a
senior aide to the radical cleric in a raid in eastern Baghdad.

Nassar al-Rubaie, the head of al-Sadr's bloc in parliament, accused U.S.
forces of trying to provoke the Sadrists into violence during the
expanding campaign to quell Iraq's fighting.

"We condemn strongly the arrest of Sheik Abdul-Hadi al-Darraji. He is
moderate and well-known as a media personality and always available in
negotiations," al-Rubaie said. "He is a peaceful man and what was
mentioned in the American release is lies and justification for the
aggression against al-Sadr's movement."

U.S. and Iraqi forces reportedly detained al-Darraji during a raid on a
mosque complex before dawn Friday.

The U.S. military, in a statement that did not name al-Darraji, said
special Iraqi army forces operating with U.S. advisers had "captured a
high-level, illegal armed group leader" in Baghdad's Baladiyat
neighborhood, next to the Mahdi Army stronghold of Sadr City. It said
two other suspects were detained for further questioning.

Sadiq al-Rikabi, an al-Maliki adviser, told Al-Arabiya television the
operation was not coordinated with Iraq's political leaders and was not
part of the new security campaign.

Police reported at least 16 Iraqis slain in attacks Saturday. In
addition, officials said 29 bodies were found in Baghdad and three in
the northern city of Mosul, most of them showing signs of torture — a
hallmark of killings by sectarian death squads.