Fierce clashes erupted between Shi'ite militias and residents of a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad today following a mortar barrage that wounded five people. Earlier, 10 were killed in another part of the capital, while three people were killed in Sadr city.
An Interior Ministry official said that the most recent attack saw 16 mortar rounds land in the Adil district, three falling on a Sunni mosque. Five worshippers inside, including the mosque's preacher, were wounded.
The official said gunmen from the Mehdi Army militia loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al Sadr had invaded the neighborhood and were fighting armed residents.
"There are many explosions now and there have been continuous clashes since late afternoon," one resident said.
Details of the clashes were sketchy, but residents said they continued as dusk approached.
Earlier today, as US Apache attack helicopters patrolled the skies, mortar rounds fell on the central Midan district of the capital, killing 10 people and wounding 54.
The busy commercial district which forms Baghdad's old town has seen an upsurge in violence in the past few weeks.
Shortly afterwards a suicide bomber blew up a minibus in Sadr City, the sprawling Shi'ite slum that two weeks ago witnessed the worst attack since the US invasion when multiple car bombs killed more than 200 people.
An Interior Ministry official said three people were killed and 16 wounded. Sadr City is a stronghold of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Iraq has been gripped by tit-for-tat violence between Shi'ites and Sunnis since the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in February.
The violence has turned many parts of the capital into no-go areas and segregated them on sectarian lines.
The latest attacks come on the day that an expert policy group in the US advised that its troops be withdrawn from combat by 2008. It recommended that some troops remain to train local forces.