At least 439 fighters and civilians have died in a month of clashes in Sadr City [EPA]

The others died when US and Iraqi troops responded after they were attacked with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades in Sadr City, the military said on Monday.
 
Rockets or mortar shells were lobbed toward the Green Zone on Monday, which houses the US embassy and much of the Iraqi government on the west side of the Tigris River.

Alarms could be heard and the public address system in the area warned residents to take cover and stay away from windows.
 
The US Embassy said the area was hit by indirect fire, the military's term for rocket or mortar attacks, and said there were "no reports of serious injury or deaths at this time."

Armed groups attacked several checkpoints and the US-protected Green Zone on Sunday.

Fierce battles

The fighting escalated as anti-US cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, rejected terms set by the Iraqi government for lifting a crackdown against his Mahdi Army.

The clashes on Sunday were concentrated in Sadr City, the stronghold of the Mahdi Army, where US soldiers used Abrams main battle tanks to repel the attackers.

Iraqi and US soldiers came under attack "by a large group of criminals," the US military said.

Fifty-eight people, including five children and eight women, were also injured in clashes in Sadr City since Sunday, local health officials said on Monday.

The latest deaths bring to at least 439 the number of fighters and civilians killed in a month of clashes in Sadr City, where violence erupted after Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, ordered a countrywide crackdown on Sadr followers, starting in the southern oil city of Basra.

At least 15 US soldiers have died in Baghdad since the clashes began.

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