Heavy firing intensifies in south Baghdad

Heavy exchanges of fire intensified on Sunday evening in southern Baghdad, with artillery, mortar, machine-gun and rocket blasts heard loudly from the centre of the Iraqi capital.

Heavy exchanges of fire intensified on Sunday evening in southern Baghdad, with artillery, mortar, machine-gun and rocket blasts heard loudly from the centre of the Iraqi capital.

HT Image

The firing which began three hours earlier seemed to intensify around 9:30 pm (1730 GMT) in the south and Southeast of Baghdad.

Anti-aircraft batteries lit up the night-time sky, which was almost completely dark due to a power cut.

It was the first day mortar and rocket fire had been heard in Baghdad, whose airport US forces captured on Friday.