Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Related: Mahdi Army Preps For Major Battle In Sadr City

BAGHDAD (AP) - Overnight clashes in Baghdad’s volatile Sadr City district killed twenty people and wounded 52 a day after the Iraqi government relaxed security measures there, police and hospital officials said Sunday.

Sadr City is a stronghold of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia. Iraq’s government eased a vehicle ban there and in the Shula neighborhood on Saturday after complaints of food shortages.

The U.S. military had no immediate comment on the reported fighting that started Saturday night and continued with sporadic exchanges of gunfire until Sunday morning.

Officials at two local hospitals said the injured included two women and four children. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

A police officer who also spoke anonymously for the same reason, said that a U.S. Stryker armored personnel carrier was damaged in the fighting.

The Stryker is an eight-wheel armored personnel carrier weighing about 16.5 tons. It can carry a crew of two and nine infantrymen.

U.S. troops then took control of a police station near Jamila, detaining and disarming all the policemen there, the officer said.

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, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

The U.S. military said it had no information about a Stryker being damaged.

An Iraqi government offensive against the Mahdi army in the southern city of Basra ground to a halt last week amid fierce resistance. Al- Sadr issued a cease-fire order and the government agreed to halt raids against his followers.

Although scattered clashes continued between his fighters and Iraqi security forces, the Iraqi government relaxed security measures Saturday around the Mahdi Army strongholds of Sadr City and the Shula neighborhood.

In an effort to ease conditions for Sadr City’s 2.5 million residents, the government has allowed trucks carrying maintenance teams, food, oil products and ambulances into the area.

A vehicle ban remains in effect as part of a curfew imposed on Baghdad after fighting broke out between government forces and Shiite militants March 25. The curfew has been lifted in the rest of Baghdad.

Several rockets or mortar rounds exploded inside the U.S.-controlled Green Zone on Sunday and adding that four civilians were injured outside the area by rounds that fell short, police said. The U.S. military confirmed the shelling but provided no details.