Iraq's Shi'ites stage major protest across three cities

THOUSANDS of Shi'ites, many waving the Koran over their heads, protested the US presence in Iraq yesterday after the detention of several supporters of a radical cleric.

Meanwhile, Sunnis shut down places of worship in a show of anger over alleged sectarian violence against the minority.

The Shi'ite protests in the southern cities of Najaf, Kufa and Nasiriyah, came as Iraq's Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari announced he will visit Syria, which has been accused of harbouring insurgents bent on starting a civil war in Iraq.

The protests, which drew an estimated 6,000 demonstrators, followed radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's call on Wednesday to reject the US occupation of Iraq by painting Israeli and US flags on the ground outside mosques to be stepped on in protest at raids against holy places.

In violence elsewhere, a suicide bombing targeting the house of Iraqi national security adviser, Mouwafak al-Rubaie, killed two civilians and wounded three in the Baghdad area of Kazimiyah, police said.

After the explosion, gunmen in the nearby Azamiyah area opened fire at a US base in Kazimiyah on the western side of the Tigris River, witnesses said.

A US soldier also was killed in a vehicle accident caused by roadside bomb attack near Taji, 10 miles north of Baghdad, the military said.

At least 1,628 members of the US military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003.

Sunni clerics also delivered fiery sermons in Baghdad and Ramadi, in the volatile Sunni Triangle in western Iraq.