Baghdad: Stiff curfews were to be imposed on Baghdad as officials try to prevent any violent reaction to the trial faced by former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
All people and vehicles were banned from the streets of the Iraqi capital and Salaheddin and Diyala provinces. Baghdad International Airport was also shut down, the Iraqi prime minister's office told CNN.
"I hope the verdict will be what this man deserves for what he committed against the Iraqi people," said Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Saturday.
In the hours before the curfew came into effect, continued violence hit in and around the capital. Eleven civilians and an Iraqi reporter were killed on Saturday, and 27 bodies were found in Baghdad, police told CNN.
Six people were killed and 20 wounded when two mortar rounds landed on a crowded area near Abu Hanifa mosque in the Adhamiya Sunni neighborhood in northern Baghdad, police said adding that they found 27 bullet-riddled bodies in various Baghdad neighborhoods over a roughly 24-hour period.
Gunmen shot and killed a reporter in a Sunni neighborhood in northern Baghdad, sources told CNN.
Ahmed al-Rasheed, a reporter with al-Sharqiya, an Iraqi satellite TV channel, was killed in Adhamiya, according to an official with the Iraqi Journalistic Freedoms Observatory and a station spokesman.
Differing accounts of battle
Iraq's Interior Ministry, meanwhile, reiterated its account of a bloody pitched battle Saturday afternoon between suspected militants and police in a southern suburb of Baghdad.
Nine police officers were wounded in the conflict and police confiscated vehicles and munitions, the ministry said.
The US military initially confirmed much of the report. But on Sunday it changed its account, saying no militants died and at least eight were detained Saturday.
Sadr City raided
US and Iraqi forces raided Baghdad's Sadr City and arrested three suspected members of an illegal armed group blamed for murdering and kidnapping Iraqi citizens and security forces Saturday, the US military said.
The recent hostilities in Sadr City and the surrounding areas involving the militia are thought to be due to sectarian strife.
Also on Saturday a US soldier died when his patrol was attacked with small-arms fire in western Baghdad, the military said. It's unclear if the death is related to the Jihad raid. The death brings to 2,830 the number of US troops who have died since the war in Iraq began.
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