Sadr City erupts in fighting

Smoke was rising and US war planes roared overhead as armed members of radical cleric Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi Army ran through the streets of the Baghdad slum after a night of fighting that left one US soldier dead and scores of Iraqis killed and wounded.

The Iraqi health ministry reported that 40 people were killed and more than 270 injured as a fragile week-long truce called by Sadr unravelled.

Militia fighters killed a US soldier and wounded two others today in a small-arms and rocket-propelled grenade attack in the sprawling Baghdad district, US Lieutenant Colonel James Hutton said.

The soldier's death brought to 992 the total number of US military fatalities since the US-led March 2003 invasion of Iraq that toppled former dictator Saddam Hussein.

US tanks rumbled around the neighbourhood and automatic arms fire echoed on Sadr City's main al-Shuhader Street. Four US military vehicles blocked off al-Hay square, site of Sadr's main office.

Lieutenant Colonel Hutton reported a string of attacks overnight on US forces in the den of the young radical cleric who has organised a thousands-strong army of young and unemployed Shiite men united under a banner of Islamic fundamentalism.

Sadr aide Sheikh Naim al-Qabi said 15 Mehdi Army fighters were killed and 62 wounded in the strife.

"Last night was the most intense shelling of Sadr City since the Americans arrived in Iraq," he said, adding heavy aircraft fire lasted from 11 pm (0400 AEST) to 4 am.

"The people are defending themselves against the occupation forces."

There was no confirmation from the Americans about air strikes in the Shiite neighbourhood.

An uneasy calm had reigned in the district since the end of last month's three-week revolt by Sadr against the Americans in the Shiite shrine city of Najaf.

Sadr's men had entered negotiations with the Iraqi government to disarm, but top officials from the movement complained the Iraqi goverment had started arresting its followers last week in defiance of the talks.

As troubles flared in the Shiite slum, the US military was mourning its dead from a flurry of anti-coalition attacks around Baghdad yesterday.

The string of three fatal attacks in the war-torn capital came after a car bomb killed seven soldiers and three Iraqi national guard near the restive city of Fallujah yesterday, in the deadliest single strike in months for US troops.

Meanwhile, Baghdad governor Ali al-Haidri narrowly escaped a bomb assassination attempt on his life that left two civilians seriously wounded, officials said.

"There was an attempt to assassinate the Baghdad governor," interior ministry spokesman Colonel Adnan Abdul Rahman said.

A police investigator on the scene in Baghdad's western al-Adel district said the bomb was a small booby trap device planted in a pothole, although the interior ministry described it as a car bomb.

Militants detonated the bomb, but a civilian vehicle was caught in front of the governor's convoy and shielded it from the force of the blast, killing the driver.

The deputy director of Karama hospital in Baghdad was also shot dead outside his place of work, the health ministry said.

In the northern city of Mosul, the son of governor for the northern Iraqi province of Niniveh was assassinated.

Leith Dureid Kashmula, 19, was shot several times in the chest by unknown attackers as he was alone in his car in western Mosul, Hazem Gallawi, media adviser for the governorate, said.

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