US missile hits near Baghdad hospital

The military blamed the militants for using Iraqi civilians as human shields. "This is a circumstance where these criminal groups are operating directly out of civilian neighborhoods," said Specialist Megan Burmeister, a military spokeswoman.

She said it presents a "complex and very difficult" challenge for US forces to strike the militants when they are "putting themselves next to municipal buildings."

Dr. Ali Bustan al-Fartusee, director general of Baghdad's health directorate, said 23 civilians were wounded in the strike.

He said no patients in the hospital were hurt, but that some of the wounded included civilians outside on their way to visit patients. He also said 17 ambulances were damaged or destroyed.

About 100 people milled about in the rubble of the destroyed building after the attack. The missile left a deep crater yards from the hospital, which is surrounded by 15-foot-tall concrete blast walls. It appeared that one section of the blast wall was leveled.

Windows were blown out of cars in the hospital's parking lot, but there did not appear to be any damage to the hospital itself.

Shi'ite extremists are known to have operated in a building next to the hospital, local reporters said.

US and Iraqi forces have waged street battles with Shi'ite militias since late March in Sadr City, the power base of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia.

The fighting is part of a five-week-old crackdown by the Iraqi government and US forces on Shi'ite militia factions. The clashes have brought deep rifts among Iraq's Shi'ite majority and have pulled US troops into difficult urban combat.

A five-member Iraqi delegation returned from Tehran yesterday from a meeting aimed at halting suspected Iranian aid to militiamen.

Ranking deputy Khalid al-Attiyah said the Iranian government had expressed its readiness to assist the Iraqi government against the extremists and "in its security measures." He did not elaborate.