A US airstrike damaged a major hospital in eastern Baghdad on Saturday, wounding 20 people, including women and children, and damaging a number of ambulances, a senior Iraqi hospital official said. No patients were wounded at the hospital. “Three missiles were fired at a place very close to the hospital. Windows of the hospital were shattered,” the official told Reuters. He said no patients in the hospital were hurt, but that some of the wounded included civilians outside on their way to visit patients in the hospital and around 17 ambulances were damaged. He charged that the attack was aimed at preventing doctors and medicines from reaching the hospital. The corridors of the hospital were littered with glass splinters, twisted metal and hanging electrical wiring. Partitions in wards had collapsed. The huge concrete blocks forming a protective wall against explosions had collapsed on parked vehicles, including up to 17 ambulances, disabling the emergency response teams. The latest attack came after a night of more violence in Sadr City. The US military said American and Iraqi forces killed 14 gunmen in battles overnight. Hospital officials said 14 people had been killed and More than 100 people were wounded in clashes Friday and Saturday in Baghdad's embattled Sadr City district, Iraqi health officials said. On Friday, an M1A1 Abrams tanks engaged militants with one round from its main gun after Iraqi army soldiers reported being attacked by small arms fire from a house, the military said. “Three were killed in the engagements,” the military said. Later Friday, a US warplane also dropped a bomb and killed two others. Nine other militants were killed in other exchanges, some of them early on Saturday.
