BAGHDAD, Iraq // U.S. and Iraqi troops battled Sunni insurgents in high-rise buildings on central Baghdad’s Haifa Street today, with snipers on roofs taking aim at gunmen in open windows as Apache attack helicopters chattered overhead. Iraq said 30 militants were killed and 27 captured.

New details also emerged about the downing of a private U.S. security company helicopter on Tuesday, with U.S. and Iraqi officials saying four of five Americans who died in the incident were shot execution’style. Violence was unrelenting in Iraq today, with at least 69 people killed or found dead, including 33 tortured bodies found in separate locations in Baghdad.

With President Bush pushing a controversial plan to increase troops strength in Iraq, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the latest joint raid was aimed at clearing the Haifa Street area of “terrorists and outlaws” targeting residents. He promised such operations would continue as U.S. and Iraqi troops prepare for a broader security crackdown to stanch the sectarian bloodletting that has turned Baghdad into a battlefield.

At 5 a.m. today, Iraqi army and American troops moved into the Sunni stronghold to launch targeted raids in a third bid this month to clear the neighborhood of militants. Armored vehicles massed along Haifa Street, where a median with trees separates four lanes of traffic lined by tall apartment houses built by Saddam Hussein for loyalists and dissidents from other Arab countries, mainly Syria.

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