US battles Shi'ite militia, Sadr offers truce
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-08-06 21:55

U.S. forces backed by helicopter gunships battled militia loyal to rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the holy city of Najaf on Friday, fueling fears of a second Shi'ite uprising.

British and Italian troops were attacked by members of Sadr's militia, known as the Mehdi Army, across Shi'ite- dominated southern Iraq -- in Basra, Amara and Nassiriya -- and fighting raged in Sadr City, a Shi'ite district of Baghdad.

Iraqi militiamen loyal to wanted cleric Moqtada Sadr in front of Imam Ali shrine in Najaf. US planes pounded the central Iraqi holy city of Najaf as intense clashes raged between US forces and Shiite Muslim militiamen in the worst fighting since a truce was agreed in June. [AFP]

The Health Ministry said fighting in Sadr City alone had killed 19 Iraqis and wounded 111 since early on Thursday, while in Nassiriya six were dead and 13 wounded. In Najaf, the toll was given as one dead and 25 wounded.

The flare-up of tension with radical members of Iraq's majority community, less than three months after Shi'ite militants last rose up across the south, is a severe headache for Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's fledgling government.

Supporters of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr chant anti-U.S. slogans as they drive past a U.S. Army soldier in the capital Baghdad, August 6, 2004. [Reuters]

In the previous uprising, in April and May, hundreds of Iraqis and dozens of U.S. troops were killed.

Yet Sadr, a young cleric with an ardent following among poor, disaffected youths, appeared keen to stop the fighting. Via a spokesman in Baghdad, he called for a resumption of a truce struck in June to end the previous bout of unrest.

"We have no objections to entering negotiations to solve this crisis," Sadr's spokesman in Baghdad, Mahmoud al-Sudani, told reporters. "As I have said in the name of Sayed Sadr, we want a resumption of the truce."

While Sadr may be popular with frustrated young Shi'ites, many of Iraq's mainstream community follow Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most influential Shi'ite cleric in Iraq who has carefully and quietly tried to keep a lid on Sadr's agitating.

In a worrying move for his followers, Sistani, a 73-year-old Iranian-born cleric, left Iraq on Friday, traveling to London via Lebanon for treatment for a heart problem, sources said.

BREWING TENSION

Tension has been rising in Najaf for several days, since Iraqi security forces surrounded Sadr's house in the city, and fighting there on Thursday was the fiercest since the uprising in April and May, when scores were killed.

On Thursday, militiamen shot down a U.S. helicopter as it was trying to evacuate a wounded soldier. No one was killed, but the pilots were wounded. The U.S. military estimated that as many as 20 militiamen were killed in the day's fighting.

Early on Friday F-16s, AC-130 gunships and helicopters patrolled the skies over Najaf, covering U.S. troops battling insurgents in and around Najaf's cemetery, the largest in the Arab world and a safe haven for militants.

On a street leading from Najaf to the nearby town of Kufa, where Sadr often preaches on Fridays, U.S. tanks fired on hotels suspected of being used by militiamen to snipe at U.S. forces, witnesses said.

Fighting also flared near Najaf's shrines, some of the holiest in Shi'ite Islam, and some alleged that gunfire had damaged the dome of the Imam Ali shrine. Most Iraqi Shi'ites react with outrage when clashes erupt near the sacred sites.

SAMARRA BOILS

As well as trying to control the Shi'ite threat, Allawi is struggling to contain Iraq's 15-month Sunni-led insurgency.

As part of that effort, the U.S. military launched operation Cajun Mousetrap around the city of Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, where guerrillas have carried out a series of bomb attacks in recent weeks.

At least three suspected insurgents were killed in overnight fighting near the town, said Major Neal O'Brien, a spokesman for U.S. forces in the area, and nine suspects were detained.

Last month, a U.S. general said he feared Samarra could become like Falluja, the rebellious city west of Baghdad, if the brewing insurgency there were not quickly tamped down.

Besides Najaf, the Mehdi Army showed its militancy in Nassiriya, 375 km (235 miles) south of Baghdad, firing assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars at Italian troops.

A spokesman for Italy's 2,700-strong force in Iraq said there were more than a dozen attacks on patrols overnight, while a barracks for Iraqi security forces was also attacked and a power plant was bombarded by mortars.

CAPITAL TENSE

In Baghdad, the U.S. military said 16 soldiers were wounded in four attacks on Thursday in Sadr City and were trying to restore order in the area, from where Sadr draws much of his support among poor, disaffected Shi'ite youths.

Colonel Robert Abrams, commander of the 1st Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division, responsible for Sadr City, said his troops were showing restraint in the face of the onslaught, which he said included children as young as six throwing firebombs.

The U.S. military's chief partner in Iraq, Britain, also came under attack when militiamen fired a mortar at a garrison in the southern city of Basra, wounding one soldier.

Basra has largely been calm since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein last year, but Sadr has a large following in the city and his followers have led occasional outbreaks of violence.

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