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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - U.S. and Iraqi troops clashed with gunmen firing heavy weapons from concrete high-rises in a Sunni insurgent stronghold north of the heavily fortified Green Zone on Wednesday. Iraqi's defense ministry said as many as 30 militants were killed and 27 captured. Apache attack helicopters buzzed past the tall buildings and radio towers, with several Humvees on the tree-lined street below. Gunfire rang in the background as shells fell, according to AP Television News footage. Black smoke rose from the area, on the west bank of the Tigris River about one mile north of the Green Zone,...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. helicopters attacked gunmen holed up inside high-rise buildings in Baghdad on Wednesday in what the U.S. military said was an operation to regain control of a major street cutting through the heart of the city. Thirty suspected insurgents were killed and 35 more detained during day-long gunbattles in the area, Defence Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said. U.S. armoured vehicles firing their heavy machine guns joined the fighting between U.S. and Iraqi forces and militants in Haifa Street, U.S. military spokesman Major Steven Lamb said. He said U.S. troops also fired mortars after coming under machinegun, mortar...

New push to control Baghdad area The operation began at dawn and lasted several hours Iraqi forces backed by US helicopter gunships have fought insurgents in the Sunni-dominated Haifa Street area of the capital, Baghdad. The US said it was part of the new plan to restore security to the capital. An Iraqi official said up to 30 militants were killed and 27 detained. One US soldier was killed. The battle came hours after President George W Bush urged the US to give his new strategy a chance to work, warning of "grievous consequences" of failure. In his annual...

Excerpt - BAGHDAD (AFP) - A steady barrage of machine-gun fire and mortars was thundering across Baghdad as Iraqi and US forces battled insurgents in one of the capital's Sunni bastions. Iraqi and US troops with air support from US Apache helicopter gunships fought insurgents in central Baghdad's Haifa Street district in a raging battle that began early in the day. The US military said Iraqi and US soldiers had launched "Operation Tomahawk Strike 11 on Haifa Street, conducting targeted raids to disrupt illegal militia activity and help restore Iraq security force control in the area". After a lull that...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 13 - Soldiers called it the "Street of Death" and "Purple Heart Boulevard," a three-mile-long residential corridor in central Baghdad that had become a shooting gallery for insurgents. In 2004 alone, Haifa Street, once a coveted address for the middle class, was the bloody venue for more than 400 attacks on American and Iraqi security forces. Many residents on the most troubled blocks fled their homes, some of which were promptly commandeered as rebel sniper roosts. An American-Iraqi military campaign begun last year to retake the street seemed to bear fruit as insurgents were captured, killed or...

For most of last year, a boulevard called Haifa Street in western Baghdad was the scene of daily street battles between U.S. and Iraqi forces and insurgents. The vicious fighting turned the six-kilometer stretch into a long, bloody nightmare for soldiers and residents alike. But the area has become a shining example of how a disciplined and a determined Iraqi force can defeat the insurgents and restore stability. "Until a few months ago, it was too dangerous for my family and I to even leave the front door open, let alone leave the house," Ms. Saleh says. She points to...

BAGHDAD — A year ago, terror reigned on Haifa Street, a boulevard in western Baghdad just south of the Tigris River. In one battle early last summer, insurgents took a wounded Iraqi soldier, tied him to a motorcycle and dragged him through the streets, said Lt. Add Al-Kharlim, an Iraqi platoon leader who was there that day. “The terrorists were powerful,” he said through an interpreter, as he and his soldiers walked the same neighborhood Monday afternoon. “When I’m walking now, I don’t believe I’m walking on Haifa Street.” The lieutenant isn’t the only one. Women walk home with groceries....

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Nearly two years after American troops captured Baghdad, Haifa Street is like an arrow at the city's heart. A little more than two miles long, it runs south through a canyon of mostly abandoned high-rises and majestic date palms almost to the Assassin's Gate, the imperial-style arch that is the main portal to the Green Zone compound, the principal seat of American power. When most roads in central Baghdad are choked with traffic, there is rarely more than a trickle of vehicles on Haifa Street. At the day's height, a handful of pedestrians scurry down empty sidewalks,...

Ahmed Resain has his back to the door, so he does not see the gunman alight from a car outside his rudimentary Al Pasha hairdressing salon, in Baghdad's dusty Al-Salam quarter. The assailant strides deliberately into the shop and coldly turns to face Ahmed. He presses a pistol to the stunned barber's lower lip, carefully angling the weapon to ensure that the bullet exits through his left jaw. Ahmed, 37, is still standing - but three shots to his legs as the gunman makes his getaway drop him to the floor in a pool of his own blood. His survival...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi officials found the decapitated body of what appears to be a young Asian male in Baghdad on Saturday. Associated Press Television News videotape showed the severed head, which had long black hair and features similar to a Japanese hostage. A hospital official said he believed the body was that of kidnapped Japanese hostage Shosei Koda, saying he recognized the body from a videotape aired by Al-Jazeera television. Iraqi's civil defense officials said they were alerted to the corpse in the fields off Haifa Street, a Baghdad neighborhood that is largely controlled by insurgents. Authorities retrieved it...

DUBAI, Oct 16 (AFP) - A statement attributed to the group of Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, Iraq's most-wanted man, claimed on Saturday that it had beheaded 11 members of the Iraqi police and national guard. "Today alone, your brethren were able to decapitate 11 apostates ... affiliated to the so-called national guard and police force," said the statement attributed to the military wing of the Tawhid wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War) group and posted on one of the main Islamist websites. The authenticity of the statement could not be confirmed, nor could the claim of beheadings be verified. The statement...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Heavy fighting erupted on Sunday in a street in central Baghdad notorious as a guerrilla stronghold, and witnesses said at least five Iraqis were killed as U.S. helicopters attacked targets in the area. One U.S. Bradley fighting vehicle could be seen on fire amid the fighting in the Haifa Street area. The gunfire flared as more than a dozen explosions shook central Baghdad at dawn on Sunday and thick plumes of smoke rose above the Green Zone compound housing Iraq 's interim government and assembly and the U.S. and other embassies.