US forces opened fire from helicopters during an overnight clash with Shia militants in western Baghdad, killing 18 people, the US military said on Friday. Angry mourners, chanting and raising fists, took to the streets in the Shula district of the Iraqi capital, carrying wooden coffins of those killed in the clash.
An Iraqi police source at nearby al-Hakim hospital said 13 bodies had been brought to its morgue, including one woman. Another 13 wounded were treated there. The clash came while women and children were sleeping on rooftops to keep cool. Reuters Television pictures showed cars with their windows blown out after being strafed by gunfire.
"We demand the Iraqi government and parliament stop the Americans interfering in Shula," local tribal elder Sabeeh al-Sharji said. "As you can see, civilians sleep on the roofs. These random attacks terrify women and children."
The US military said a group of its paratroops had come under small arms and machine gun fire while searching for a weapons cache, and "confirmed killing 18 enemy combatants".
The political movement of anti-American Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said four women were killed. "We hold the Iraqi government fully responsible for the souls of the civilians killed during this savage bombardment," the group's parliamentary leader, Nassar al-Rubie, said.
US troops have staged a number of raids, especially in Sadr's Sadr City stronghold in Baghdad, in pursuit of militants blamed for roadside bomb attacks on US forces. In another raid in the town of Tarmiya north of the capital, US forces said they killed seven militants.
With just weeks to go before US ambassador Ryan Crocker and military commander General David Petraeus are to report to Congress on progress in Iraq, US intelligence agencies released a grim forecast of more violence and stalemate.
"Levels of insurgent and sectarian violence will remain high and the Iraqi government will continue to struggle to achieve national-level political reconciliation and improved governance," the National Intelligence Estimate found.
FUNDAMENTAL SHIFT NEEDED: The report said there had been "measurable but uneven improvements" in Iraqi security since January under the troop increase, but that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government would become more precarious over the next 6 to 12 months.
"Broadly accepted political compromises required for sustained security, long-term political progress and economic development are unlikely to emerge unless there is a fundamental shift in the factors driving Iraqi political and security developments," it said.
In a sign of the political deadlock, the secularist bloc of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi announced that its ministers, who had been boycotting cabinet meetings, would quit the government altogether.
Maliki has been trying to knit back together his national unity government after key groups quit, notably the main Sunni Arab bloc, the Accordance Front, which pulled out on August 1.
Vice-President Tareq al-Hashemi, the only Accordance Front leader to remain in office, said the bloc's ministers would return only if their demands for reforms were met. "Implementation of the reform package is the precondition," he told reporters during a visit to Turkey.
The Front has said its demands include more influence over policy in areas like security and an improvement of basic services in predominantly Sunni Arab provinces.
Washington has dispatched an additional 30,000 troops to Iraq this year and pushed them from big bases into neighbourhood outposts in an effort to quell sectarian violence in Baghdad and neighbouring provinces. US officials say the strategy has improved security somewhat but have expressed frustration at the failure of Maliki's Shia-led government to make progress.