Iraqi Deaths Are On The Rise Again During Clashes With Militias

BAGHDAD — The toll of civilian deaths in the Iraqi capital last month reached its highest point since September 2007, and the death toll nationwide has soared in recent weeks as Shiite militiamen have battled Iraqi and American security forces, Interior Ministry figures obtained Tuesday show.

A blog looking at daily life inside Iraq, produced by The Times’s Baghdad bureau.

The most likely explanation for the scale of the most recent increases is that they are largely the result of battles between security forces and the Mahdi Army, the militia founded by the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr. The fighting has taken place in Baghdad and in a number of cities in the Shiite-dominated south.

The battles reached their peak after Iraqi forces began an assault on militia-controlled areas in Basra one week ago; that fighting has dropped off since Sunday, when Mr. Sadr asked his militia to lay down its arms and made a series of demands of the Iraqi government.

The new statistics showing an increase in civilian deaths due to armed clashes, assassinations and sectarian killings are consistent with trends documented by other agencies and groups monitoring the violence in Iraq.

After a period of rapidly improving security last fall in the wake of an American troop increase, anecdotal reports suggest that the rate of violent incidents is up all over the country. Official Pentagon statistics indicate that after months of sharp improvements, the number of attacks on civilians and security forces has remained roughly constant since November.

Solid figures on civilian casualties in Iraq are difficult to obtain, and there has been intense disagreement among the American military, the Iraqi government, humanitarian groups, news organizations and Western academic researchers on the precise scale of the losses. Still, for the most part, there has been a general agreement among the various groups on trends in the data.

Figures obtained from the Iraqi Interior Ministry on Tuesday put the number of civilians recorded as killed in violence in Baghdad during March at approximately 472, the largest number since approximately 543 such deaths were recorded in September. The civilian numbers are not exact, in part because they include a category for “unidentified bodies,” and some of them may be so burned or mutilated that uniforms, identification cards or other information that could link a corpse to the military are not available.

That death toll is 43 percent higher than February’s, and almost double that of the lowest point in the past six months, in December. But these latest figures are far lower than those during the height of sectarian violence in Iraq in late 2006 and early 2007.

As battles were waged in recent weeks between the Mahdi Army and security forces and in some cases among warring Shiite militias themselves, the ministry’s countrywide death toll — which includes civilians, Iraqi Army, police and other security forces, like border guards — rose 55 percent in March, to 2,012 deaths, compared with February’s.

In the streets themselves, Iraqis continued to venture out warily after days of fighting had kept them huddled in their homes. In Basra, as Iraqi Army and police forces began dragging away vehicles damaged and burned in the fighting, roughly half the shops in the city had reopened, but tensions remained high.

After Mr. Sadr’s statements caused the Mahdi Army to melt away on the streets, Iraqi security forces appeared to step up their raids on those they regard as renegade militiamen, a move that could endanger what is clearly a fragile truce. An Iraqi security official in Basra said that an Iraqi special operations unit out of Hilla known as the Scorpion Brigade raided a Mahdi Army unit south of Basra on Tuesday, arresting about 20 gunmen and recovering $270,000 in cash.

In a separate statement, the American military referred to those arrested as “suspected vehicle smugglers” and put the amount of cash recovered at $262,000. The American military, as well as some senior Iraqi officials, have recently sought to characterize nearly all military operations in Iraq as actions against “criminals,” and not specifically against the Mahdi Army.

Clearly with an eye to Mr. Sadr’s ability to stir up widespread fighting if he chooses, those officials have labored to speak respectfully of Mr. Sadr and what they suggest are his largely law-abiding followers.

Reporting was contributed by Qais Mizher, Ahmad Fadam and Karim al-Hilmi from Baghdad, and employees of The New York Times from Basra.

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