President George W. Bush has announced a suspension of US troop withdrawals from Iraq this summer to allow the military to reassess the security situation.
The announcement came amid increased violence in Iraq in recent weeks. Iraqi police said today that US air strikes killed 10 people in the eastern Baghdad militia stronghold of Sadr City, where street fighting had eased after four days of clashes that have killed close to 90 people.
Bush endorsed a recommendation by his commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, to complete a limited withdrawal of combat troops by July but then impose a 45-day freeze of the total at about 140,000 troops before considering more possible cuts.
"I've told him he'll have all the time he needs," Bush said in Washington.
The Sadr City slum has since Sunday been the focal point of battles between black-masked Mehdi Army militiamen loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and security forces.
An extension of clashes that erupted in late March when Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki cracked down on the militia in the southern city of Basra, the violence has colored a US election-year debate over troop cuts by highlighting the fragility of recent security gains.
Iraqi police said two separate US air strikes this morning had killed six people and wounded 10 in Sadr City. Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Stover, a U.S. military spokesman, confirmed two strikes on a suspected rocket site from a drone plane, but said he was unaware of any deaths.
Late on Wednesday, a US helicopter fired two missiles at gunmen in the slum who attacked a joint US-Iraqi security station, killing four, Stover said. Iraqi police and hospital officials said two of the four dead were young boys.
A roadside bomb also killed a US soldier in central Baghdad overnight, raising the US military death toll in Iraq to 20 for April, putting this month on track to be the deadliest for American soldiers since September.
Still, police, the US military and residents said the streets of Sadr City, where most of the fighting this week has taken place, were calmer than in the past four days, when Sadr's militia battled the US and Iraqi military.