(Updates with Bush meeting plans) By Ross Colvin and Alastair Macdonald BAGHDAD, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Iraqi troops backed by U.S. attack helicopters fought militants for several hours in central Baghdad on Friday as new figures showed a leap in the number of Iraqis killed in violence in November. Two Apache helicopters firing anti-missile flares swooped over Fadhil neighbourhood, a Sunni insurgent stronghold in one of the oldest parts of the capital, amid the slow thump of heavy machinegun fire, witnesses said. On the ground, U.S. and Iraqi troops, raiding the area's narrow alleyways in a hunt for insurgent hideouts, clashed with gunmen who killed one Iraqi soldier and wounded five, an Interior Ministry official said. The Defence Ministry said 43 people were detained and a house was found that appeared to be a guerrilla field hospital. While Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki received strong backing from U.S. President George W. Bush on Thursday, he remains under pressure to get tougher with Sunni insurgents and Shi'ite party militias who have created virtual no-go zones in the capital and are blamed for thousands of deaths. As Bush grapples with the diplomacy of solving Iraq's problems, the White House said he would meet the most powerful party leader in the Shi'ite majority, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, on Monday and the Sunni vice president later this month. Data from Interior Ministry officials showed a 44-percent leap in civilian casualties in November compared with October. The increase, to 1,850 deaths, was matched by a 45-percent rise in the number of civilian deaths tallied by Reuters. They included 202 people killed in last week's multiple car bombing in the Shi'ite stronghold of Sadr city, the worst attack since the U.S. invasion in 2003. The violence has its epicentre in Baghdad, despite thousands of U.S. troops being poured into the capital to help the Iraqi army regain control of the streets from sectarian death squads. and Sunni insurgents. The U.S. military said Friday's operation in Fadhil by the 9th Iraqi Army Division and U.S. soldiers was aimed at "capturing and denying a safe haven to terrorist forces". "The targets of these raids are believed to be regularly killing innocent Iraqis and have an active campaign designed to disrupt the peace and stability of the region," it said. BAGHDAD RAIDS A resident, Abu Omar al-Qaisi, said Iraqi troops and armed men in civilian clothes entered the area at dawn, causing clashes in which several people were killed. He said he helped carry eight bodies into a local mosque. At midday, four U.S. armoured Humvee vehicles entered his street and directed machinegun fire at a school, he told Reuters by telephone. Shooting could be heard in the background. By late afternoon, relative calm had returned. U.S. forces earlier carried out raids in and around Baghdad, killing two suspected al Qaeda insurgents and detaining 27, the military said in a statement. The fighting occurred amid reports that an independent bipartisan group would recommend U.S. troops pull back into their bases in Iraq in more of a support role, while providing training and equipment for Iraqi forces. Maliki has complained that his security forces, heavily dependent on U.S. armour and air power, are ill-equipped to tackle the violence and need more weapons. After meeting Bush in Jordan on Thursday, he said his forces would be able to take over security command from U.S. troops by June 2007, which could allow Washington to start withdrawing. "The president is going to give himself a few weeks before taking a decision after consultations and announcing any decision on troop reductions," the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, told Al Arabiya television. Italy, one of America's closest allies in the war, pulled out the last of its 3,000 troops, lowering the tricolour flag at its base in the south of the country. Other allies have already withdrawn troops or announced planned withdrawals next year.
