BAGHDAD (AFP) - Battles between Shiite fighters and US forces in Baghdad's militia stronghold of Sadr City killed 15 people and wounded dozens more overnight, US and Iraqi officials said on Friday.

A US military statement said 11 Shiite militants were killed when they attacked American soldiers with small arms fire from the "ground and roof-tops" in Sadr City.

They were killed in the ensuing firefight and a US Hellfire missile attack, the statement added.

Earlier on Friday, Iraqi officials said four people had been killed in overnight clashes and that dozens more were wounded.

Since March 25, US and Iraqi forces have been battling militants, mostly from anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, in the slum district of some two million people.

Hundreds of people have been killed.

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