US tanks roll into Najaf to crush rebels

US tanks pushed into Najaf's vast cemetery-turned-battlefield yesterday as helicopter gunships fired on Shiite militiamen hiding there.

American patrols with loudspeakers went through the city, warning militants to leave or face death.

Explosions shook the streets and black smoke rose over parts of Najaf, but the fighting with Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia appeared more sporadic than in recent days.

A large fire broke out at a hotel about 300 yards from the Imam Ali Shrine, Najaf's holiest site, which fighters have reportedly been using as a base. Witnesses said insurgents were firing from inside the hotel and US forces returned fire.

In a new tactic, US military vehicles equipped with loudspeakers drove through the streets warning residents to stay away from the fighting and for militants to put down their weapons and leave.

"We ask residents to cooperate with the Iraqi army and police," a voice said in Arabic. "There will be no truce or negotiations with terrorists."

Small clashes also broke out in the Baghdad Shiite neighbourhood of Sadr City, despite a nighttime curfew imposed on Monday.

Mahdi Army militants repeatedly attacked a district council hall, clashing with US and Iraqi forces protecting the building, said US Captain Brian O'Malley of the 1st Brigade Combat Team. Groups of three to five fighters have been attacking the building with mortars, gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades "every hour or so" from 7am to about 5pm, he said.

The fighting killed one person and wounded 18, Health Ministry officials said.

There were no employees there during the attacks, and O'Malley said about 14,000 people hadn't been able to go to work since the fighting started in Sadr City days ago.

While US and Iraqi forces were trying to quell the eruption of Shiite violence, attacks by Sunni Muslim militants persisted.

A roadside bomb detonated as a US military vehicle drove on a street in central Baghdad yesterday, slightly wounding two soldiers, the military said. On Monday a suicide car bomb targeting a deputy governor killed six people, and a roadside bomb hit a bus, killing four passengers.

The sixth day of Shiite violence came after al-Sadr on Monday said he would fight "until the last drop of my blood has been spilled."

The uprising began to affect Iraq's crucial oil industry, as pumping to the southern port of Basra was halted because of militant threats to infrastructure, the South Oil Company said.

About 1.8 million barrels per day, or 90% of Iraq's exports, move through Basra, and any shutdown in the flow of Iraq's main money earner would badly hamper reconstruction efforts. Iraq's other export line is already out of operation.