BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Clashes erupted between gunmen and Iraqi troops and a car bomb killed two people on Wednesday as the government launched a security clampdown to root out al Qaeda militants in Baghdad.
Gunmen carrying automatic rifles blocked roads with stones and tree trunks and exchanged fire with Iraqi soldiers in Adhamiya, a Sunni insurgent stronghold that is one of Baghdad's most dangerous areas, a Reuters reporter at the scene said.
Civilians fled the area but there were no immediate reports of casualties. Five Iraqi army tanks moved through Adhamiya and clashes later subsided.
In northern Baghdad, a car bomb targeting a police patrol killed two people and wounded seven. A Reuters photographer who was 10 meters (yards) from the blast saw a man and a teenager burning amid the wreckage after the bomb caused a big fireball.
On Tuesday President Bush told new Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki during a surprise visit to Baghdad that the fate and future of Iraq was "in your hands."
Addressing a televised news conference as the crackdown got under way, Maliki insisted he was ready to talk to insurgents who do not have Iraqi blood on their hands.
"The door is open for dialogue with gunmen who oppose the political process and now want to go back to political activity under pledges," said Maliki, a tough-talking Shi'ite who has reached out to some Sunni Arab insurgent groups in a bid to draw them into the U.S.-sponsored process.
Iraqi officials said operation "Forward Together" would involve more than 40,000 Iraqi and U.S.-led forces in a sweep to corner al Qaeda in Iraq following the killing of its leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi last week in a U.S. air strike.
Similar operations in the past have failed to stem bloodshed that has killed thousands and pushed Iraq toward civil war.
Bush, whose popularity has slumped because of the war that has killed nearly 2,500 U.S. troops, told Maliki during his visit that it was time the Iraqi government developed a plan to improve security.
"The decisions you and your cabinet make will determine as to whether or not your country succeeds, can govern itself, can defend itself, can sustain itself," Bush told Maliki, whose self-styled government of national unity took office last month.
DAILY CARNAGE
With a population of seven million, Baghdad has been the scene of daily carnage and kidnappings.
Maliki, who last week overcame wrangling among Shi'ite and Sunni coalition partners to fill the Interior and Defense posts, is under pressure to deliver on promises to reduce the violence.
He told the news conference the operation was also aimed at restoring security in Baghdad so that families displaced by violence could return. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have fled their homes fearing religious or ethnic hatred.
Despite growing domestic discontent, Bush has resisted setting a timetable for the withdrawal of 130,000 U.S. troops, saying this depends on the capability of Iraqi forces.
Reuters reporters saw new army checkpoints backed by armored vehicles in Baghdad's western Mansour district and an Iraqi tank in religiously mixed Amiriya, where Sunni Arab insurgents and U.S. and Iraqi forces have often clashed.
American forces kept a low profile.
As Bush met Iraqi leaders in Baghdad, al Qaeda's new leader in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, said in a statement posted on the Internet that "the day of vengeance" was near.
The death of Zarqawi, a Sunni Arab who attacked majority Shi'ites in a bid to spark civil war, and the appointment of a Sunni as defense minister, have opened a narrow window of opportunity to ease communal hatreds, analysts said.
Sunnis, dominant under Saddam Hussein but now the backbone of the insurgency, view the U.S.-backed process with suspicion.
(Additional reporting by Reuters photographers and cameramen, Ahmed Rasheed, Michael Georgy and Fredrik Dahl in Baghdad)
Good. Operation Green Zone Baghdad.
An iraqi blogger proposed this a long time ago, and it is vitally needed. They have needed to make all of Baghdad a 'green zone' for a long time, a key failure on the PR front that we let terrorists operate in Baghdad. Indeed, we've had better success in the smaller towns than in Baghdad. As long as Baghdad is violent, the press can write their dark missives from hotel rooms, and Iraqis in the capital feel things are not in control.
70,000 troops is a serious presence, and should be enough.
Now is the time to turn the corner on that and really clamp down on terrorism in Baghdad.
Smoke 'em out, guys.
Gee, I wonder how the Reuters guy just happened to be so close. I think he needs to be brought in for questioning.
Or at least that's what I thought it said when I first skimmed it!
Many Iraqis Dismiss Bush Visit As Stunt ~ Patrick Quinn spins for the Leftist MSM again
With what you reported here, it seems that he is using Al-Sadr as one of his prime sources....