2 Terrorists Killed in Sadr City

A Predator drone seeks and destroys two terrorists. AP

BAGHDAD (AP) — An unmanned drone killed two gunmen in Baghdad's embattled Sadr City district, while another remote-controlled craft crashed south of the capital, the U.S. military said Tuesday.

In Kuwait, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki urged neighboring countries to help dry up "the springs of terrorism" by preventing militants from obtaining weapons and financing from abroad. He was attending a meeting of Iraq's neighbors and other nations aimed at helping the government restore stability in Iraq.

A military statement said that a drone spotted two gunmen with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher in Sadr City late Monday and engaged them with a Hellfire missile. Both men were killed.

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U.S. Apache attack helicopters and armed Predator drones have been launching daily strikes against militiamen clashing with Iraqi and U.S. troops in Sadr City, a sprawling district of 2.5 million people.

But near Iskandariyah, a town 30 miles south of Baghdad, a Shadow reconnaissance drone crashed early Tuesday, local police said. The U.S. military said it was investigating the cause of the crash.

Unlike the much larger Predator, the Shadow is an unarmed lightweight craft equipped with a camera capable of producing color video in daylight and thermal images at night, which it conveys back to controllers on the ground.