Iraqi troops backed by U.S. forces battled Shiite fighters in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood in clashes that killed 22 people and wounded more than 50 despite a cease-fire between the government and the militia, officials said Sunday, according to AP. To the north, police said gunmen seized 42 students off a bus near the city of Mosul _ al-Qaida's last major urban stronghold _ but later released them unharmed. The U.S. military said that fighting broke out overnight in Sadr City, a stronghold of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militants. Officials at two local hospitals said 22 people were killed and 92 wounded. A police officer said that a U.S. Stryker armored personnel carrier was damaged in the fighting, which continued with sporadic exchanges of fire through Sunday morning. Two armored Humvee vehicles and two trucks belonging to the Iraqi army were also destroyed, said the officer. The U.S. military said it had no information about a Stryker being damaged.
