CNN REPORTS: SIX ROADSIDE BOMBS HIT US ARMY TRUCK CONVOY IN BAGHDAD

U.S. Army and Iraqi patrol came under fire setting up checkpoint About 9 p.m. -- at least six roadside bombs damaged vehicles in a U.S. Army convoy that was transporting barriers for a group of Iraqi Army soldiers establishing a checkpoint, the military said.Afterward, the military said, the Iraqi and U.S. soldiers were attacked by small-arms, machine-gun and RPG fire from buildings overlooking the road.

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The office of Muqtada al-Sadr accused Iraqi and U.S. forces of attacking Sadr City on Friday, just hours after the Shiite cleric called for calm in the wake of the assassination of one of his top aides in the southern city of Najaf.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/04/11/iraq.main/index.html

Witnesses and media in the heavily Shiite Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, home to the cleric's power base in the capital, reported heavy fighting between U.S.-backed Iraqi troops and al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia.

The witnesses said U.S. aircraft had been bombarding the area for hours, and media reported rockets slamming into houses and many casualties.

Witnesses and al-Sadr's office said mosques were making loudspeaker announcements about Mehdi Army attacks on U.S. military armored vehicles.

U.S. troops working in support of Iraqi soldiers killed two snipers, two other men firing rocket-propelled grenades and "multiple others from a nearby building where soldiers were taking RPG and machine gun fire," the U.S. military said in a statement
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The soldiers fired back at their attackers, killing at least four of them.

More explosions from the buildings indicated possible arms and munitions stored there, the military said. But the small-arms attack continued until the U.S. forces fired two rounds from an M1A2 Abrams tank, killing two more attackers.

Not long afterward, the U.S. Air Force, operating an unmanned aerial vehicle, fired a Hellfire missile at three men spotted setting roadside bombs, killing all three.

Maj. John Gossart, executive officer of the American unit involved, said that no U.S. or Iraqi troops were seriously hurt.

Earlier, al-Sadr issued remarks about the killing of Sayyed Riyadh al-Nuri, who was shot outside his house in Najaf's Adala neighborhood after returning from Friday prayers