Baghdad: Two US air strikes in Baghdad's embattled Sadr City district killed six people as fighting flared for a fifth straight day today between Shiite militiamen and security forces.

Violence in other parts of the Iraqi capital and across the country killed another eight people, among them a policeman and a soldier, security and medical officials said.

An air strike mid-morning in the heart of Sadr City on a building crammed with oxygen cylinders which can be used to make roadside bombs killed two people and wounded four, the official said.

They added an earlier air raid, around midnight, killed four and wounded six near Al-Albaih mosque in the centre of Sadr City, stronghold of Shiite radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr whose Mahdi Army militiamen are fighting Iraqi and US forces.

An AFP reorter who toured Sadr City in the afternoon said streets were shaken sporadically by the sound of automatic gunfire while loud explosions were heard from time to time.

Around 70 people have been killed and scores wounded since fresh clashes broke out in Sadr City on Sunday, according to security and medical officials.

The chief of the Sadr movement in Sadr City said residents were "under siege" and warned its militia were ready to take up arms again.

"Today, three million inhabitants of Sadr City are under siege. They are prevented from leaving and from reaching food supplies," Salman al-Fraiji told AFP.

Source : PTI