Baghdad crackdown costs U.S. lives

April 10, 2007

U.S. and Iraqi forces in Baghdad are engaged in what appears to be the heaviest battle in the capital since the latest security crackdown. Local people in Baghdad said they saw U.S. helicopters fire on buildings where gunmen had holed up in the Sunni stronghold of Fadhil. Police and witnesses said there had been casualties. The Baghdad offensive is regarded as a last-ditch attempt to halt Iraq's slide into all-out civil war.