Saturday, November 18, 2006
U.S. and Iraqi forces raid Sadr City for hostages
Security
U.S. and Iraqi forces raided a Shiite stronghold in Baghdad on Saturday, looking for dozens of men abducted from an Iraqi government office. Coalition forces searched for four American security contractors missing in an attack on their convoy in southern Iraq. Iraqi soldiers backed by U.S. helicopters swept through the Sadr City section of the capital motivated by intelligence indicating an armed group was holding the Iraqi hostages, the U.S. military said. The statement did not say whether any hostages were found. No casualties were reported among coalition forces, but Iraqi police said three Iraqi civilians were wounded. The mass kidnapping was widely believed to have been the work of the Mahdi Army, the heavily armed militia of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
