CNN REPORTS: BAGHDAD STADIUM USED TO SHELTER SADR CITY RESIDENTS FLEEING EMBATTLED CITY

Baghdad stadium to shelter Iraqis fleeing Sadr City danger

Story Highlights
Official says 400 families at most have left Sadr City neighborhood
He denies reports people ordered out, says they're rumors spread by "gangs"
Former insurgent, now in U.S.-backed group, injured in suicide bombing
At least 13 killed in incidents including car bombing in Baghdad on Thursday

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/05/08/iraq.main/index.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A top official in Baghdad said the capital's biggest stadium is one of three locations being prepared for residents fleeing Baghdad's Sadr City, where Iraqi and U.S. forces have been fighting Shiite militants for weeks.

An Iraqi mother and daughter walk near a checkpoint at the entrance to Baghdad's Sadr City on Wednesday.

Tahseen al-Sheikhly, the civilian spokesman for the Baghdad security plan, said no more than 400 families have fled the war-torn neighborhood so far. There have been reports that thousands of people have fled.

Al-Sheikhly discounted reports that soldiers have been using loudspeakers to tell people to leave. He said "criminal gangs" are spreading the rumor to generate fears among the populace that a big strike is being prepared by security forces. He said gangs are trying to generate hatred of security forces by distributing a "fabricated" video of coalition forces assaulting a woman.

Those families that are leaving, he said, are residents who have been cooperating with security forces, families of security forces who have been threatened, and people who have been "held hostage by the criminal gangs."

He said one man left after he protested to insurgents that they were planting a roadside bomb too close to his house and the insurgents told him to leave the area.

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