Battles in Baghdad have reached a surge today. You can hear heavy machine guns, mortars, RPGs all the time together with helicopters and jet fighters firing all kind of weapons including what seems to be small bombs sometimes (judging by the sounds) All this is coming from Sadr city and some neighboring areas and it seems closer to us here in the center than previous days.

Many people say that some of the Mahdi Army militia have left Sadr city and are infiltrating the side roads of other neighborhoods. People say that they are preventing people from opening their shops, shutting down those who are open together with gas stations. This seems logical since they can’t perform in Sadr city with the curfew still working there but I doubt that they are able to pass through the check points made by the American army and the ING all over Sadr city, at least not in large numbers...