Mortar barrage kills 8 in Baghdad - Conflict in Iraq - MSNBC.com

Mortar barrage kills 8 in Baghdad - Conflict in Iraq - MSNBC.com: "BAGHDAD - A series of mortar barrages killed eight civilians and wounded 25 others early Saturday in a Sunni enclave surrounded by Shiite areas in central Baghdad, police said, while a key bridge was damaged by a bomb in northern Iraq.

The mortars began slamming into the Fadhil area in Baghdad at 1:30 a.m. and continued sporadically until 7 a.m., damaging five houses, a policeman said, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to deal with the media. A woman and a child were among the eight dead, he said.

Baghdad’s Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods frequently exchange mortar and other fire in Iraq’s continuing sectarian conflict.

Elsewhere in the capital, residents in the Sunni neighborhood of Amariyah remained under curfew as U.S. and Iraqi troops sought to maintain calm in the area after fierce clashes between rival insurgent groups and al-Qaida in Iraq.

Firas al-Azzawi, a 32-year-old father of two, said he closed his electronics shop when the clashes began earlier this week. He said people were converging on the few stores that were open to buy food, including one grocer who brought in fresh vegetables by loading them in handcarts.

He said the grocer was rationing how much he sold “because there was not enough for everyone who were waiting in a line to buy.”" Read complete post here.