Iraqi Shiite Militias Clash Near Babylon

Rival Shiite militiamen battled near the ancient city of Babylon on Saturday until American forces and helicopters rushed to separate the combatants.

Gunfights broke out in Hamza al-Gharbi, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, after a bomb exploded near the offices of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a leading Shiite political party that sponsors the Badr Brigades militia.

The party's supporters accused members of the Madhi Army headed by the radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr of being behind the blast, Police Capt. Muthana Khalid Ali said. He said Iraqi army and police called for reinforcements and backup from American forces, who imposed a curfew. There was no immediate confirmation of U.S. involvement from a military spokesmen.

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Insurgents stage defiant parades in string of towns west of Baghdad

Insurgents stage defiant parades in string of towns west of Baghdad

(Baghdad, Iraq-AP, Oct. 20, 2006 2:15 PM) _ Al-Qaida-linked gunmen staged military-like parades Friday in a string of towns west of Baghdad, underlining the growing confidence of Sunni insurgents in a part of Iraq where U.S. and Iraqi forces maintain a heavy counterinsurgency presence.

Like the audacious show of force by up to 60 insurgents in the city of Ramadi on Wednesday, the latest parades -- including two less than a mile from U.S. military bases -- were staged in support of an announcement this week by a militant Sunni Arab group that it had created an Islamic state in six of Iraq's 18 provinces, including the capital, Baghdad.

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Significantly, two of Friday's four parades -- involving dozens of gunmen in the towns of Haditha and Haqlaniyah -- took place less a mile from U.S. military bases, according to witnesses. There were no reports of clashes.

Besides Haditha and Haqlaniyah, parades were also held in the towns of Bani Daher and Rwah, all of which are in Anbar, a vast and mostly desert province where the Sunni insurgency has been fiercest since Saddam Hussein's ouster in 2003. Ramadi is Anbar's provincial capital.

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