Fighters loyal to a Shiite cleric re-emerged Monday in the southern city of Amarah, hunting down and killing four policemen from a rival militia. The Mahdi Army re-emerged Monday after two days of relative calm and killed four more Badr Brigades-aligned policemen, dragging them out of their houses and dumping their bodies elsewhere.
In Baghdad, the U.S. military reported that a soldier was listed as missing Monday night and that American and Iraqi forces were searching the area where he was last seen. The missing soldier is an Army translator, and the initial report is that he may have been abducted, said a military official, according to the AP. The military on Monday announced four new U.S. deaths - a Marine and three soldiers. So far this month, 87 American service members have been killed in Iraq.
In Baghdad, public festivities were rare to mark the start of Eid al-Fitr, the feasting days at the end of the Ramadan month of fasting. At least four explosions, including a car bomb on a crowded shopping street in Shiite eastern Baghdad, killed at least eight people and wounded more than 20 on Monday.
