...an Iraqi translator with a U.S. patrol told me it was fired by unknown gunmen...

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/international/ticker/detail/Mortar_wars_terrorise_weary_Baghdad_residents.html?siteSect=143&sid=7360216&cKey=1166437402000

Mortar wars terrorise weary Baghdad residents

By Ahmed Rasheed and Ross Colvin

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Retired Iraqi army officer Abdul-Rahman al-Nuami, 60, can clearly remember the evening in mid-June when he first heard the dull boom of a mortar round slamming into his mainly Sunni district in western Baghdad.

"I was shocked. I thought the U.S. army had fired it by mistake. But an Iraqi translator with a U.S. patrol told me it was fired by unknown gunmen," he told Reuters.

The U.S. military offers no explanation for the sudden surge in mortar attacks, but many areas have become Shi'ite or Sunni enclaves, no-go areas for outsiders.