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BAGHDAD - Iraqi and US forces said they killed 50 people in central Baghdad on Tuesday as American jets and helicopters prowled overhead and Iraq's government welcomed word from Washington that more US troops are on their way.
The casualty estimate from the Iraqi Defence Ministry for the day's battle around Haifa Street took the death toll in the neighbourhood, long a bastion of Sunni insurgents, to more than 130 since Saturday, most of them described as "terrorists".
Though not clearly related, the fighting has followed news of a crackdown on militants in the capital announced by Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki four days ago and came on the eve of a keynote address by US President George W. Bush whose allies say he is ready to send 20,000 more soldiers to Baghdad.
"There are many terrorist hideouts in Haifa Street," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told a news conference, adding that some suspects detained were foreign Arabs.
Officials say gunmen killed 27 civilians on Saturday but have given conflicting accounts of whether bodies were hung from poles on Haifa Street, in apparent protest at Maliki's decision to rush through the hanging of Saddam Hussein 10 days ago.
Bush's Democratic opponents, newly in control of Congress, have warned they may resist the 15 per cent increase in the US force in Iraq and have voiced scepticism about the will of the Iraqi government to target Shi'ite as well as minority Sunni militants in the interests of staving off all-out civil war.
But Maliki, in an interview with Al-Arabiya television which his government has at times accused of sectarian bias, insisted: "We will fight outlaws regardless of their religion ... Whoever breaks the rules ... will be held to account -- forcefully."
His spokesman said the government welcomed any additional US force and a senator from Bush's Republican party said the increase in US troops was proposed by Maliki himself, though he has also insisted on a lead role for Iraqis.
Dabbagh said there would be "grave consequences" if the crackdown failed. With US public opinion hardening against a war which has killed more than 3000 Americans, some portray any operation as a last chance to halt the blood-letting in Baghdad.
A US general in Iraq has blamed the failure of last year's crackdown on violence that is killing hundreds of people a week in the city on a shortage of Iraqi troops and a failure to strike Shi'ite militias as well as anti-government Sunni rebels.
One of Iraq's top Sunni political leaders, Adnan al-Dulaimi, told Reuters the fighting on Haifa Street was simply a front for Shi'ites pushing Sunnis out of the capital: "It is a pretext that there are terrorists. They are poor, oppressed people."
He said the battle aimed at "terrorising people to make them flee the country and let militias .... come and spread chaos".
The United Nations has called the flight of 3.5 million Iraqis - an eighth of the population - the worst in the region since Palestinians quit their lands in 1948 and urged states where half a million fled last year alone not to deport them.
Complaints from Saddam's once dominant Sunni Arabs that they are being persecuted by the Shi'ite majority have been amplified by reaction to the ousted leader's execution and to video footage showing Shi'ite officials taunting him on the gallows.
As a third clip of covert film emerged on the internet on Tuesday showing Saddam lying on hospital trolley with a vivid red wound on his throat, government spokesman Dabbagh said a government investigation into the rowdy scenes at the execution concluded with one man facing judicial proceedings.
In another sign of bubbling sectarian tension, Maliki's office and police denied reports from Sunni community leaders of Sunni pilgrims returning from the haj to Mecca being kidnapped.
Republican Senator Gordon Smith, one of several lawmakers briefed by Bush on his plans, said Maliki made commitments that the Iraqi government and military would take steps to strengthen security in exchange for more US troops to secure the capital.
Responding to US calls for the government to reach out to Sunnis and ease restrictions on employment for former members of Saddam's Baath party, Dabbagh said reform was planned that would help the "90 per cent" of ex-Baathists who were "good citizens".
Seeking to address US concerns about the will of the Iraqi government to tackle sectarian violence, Bush's new plan is also expected to include setting "benchmarks" for reform - an expression that Maliki has bridled at in the past.
It may also include a job creation programme for Iraqis costing more than US$1 billion. Though substantial, that compares to more than US$20 billion in reconstruction funds that Washington poured in after the invasion - to little effect, critics said - and of Iraq's budgeted revenue in 2007 of US$33 billion.
- REUTERS
