Insurgents battle US troops in holy city

HEAVY gunfire and huge explosions resounded in Karbala yesterday as US forces battled Iraqi militiamen near a gold-domed shrine that is one of the most sacred sites for Shi’ite Muslims.

Thick smoke rose over the city centre.

Heavy explosions were heard in another Shi’ite holy city, Najaf, where Shi’ite militiamen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr also face US troops.

Roadside bombs killed a marine in the Fallujah area yesterday and a soldier in Baghdad yesterday, US officials said. Another marine died of wounds suffered in a clash in western Anbar province yesterday.

In Karbala, al-Sadr’s fighters regrouped in alleys north of Imam Hussein’s shrine. Smoke drifted over the shrine, apparently from a nearby power generator that had been set on fire. Fighting also raged near the city’s Imam Abbas shrine.

Residents said the fighting left many homes destroyed and shops gutted by fire, and many families fled to safer areas of the city. In some cases, men stayed while women and children left.

Young men gathered at some street corners to watch the fighting. Militiamen in groups of three and four moved in side streets. Majeed Mohammed Ali, owner of a cloth shop across the road from the Imam Abbas shrine, and two employees loaded his merchandise into a truck for storage elsewhere.

“I cannot wait any longer. Many shops have been burned down. I will not reopen my shop until all this is over,” Ali said from atop the truck.

Pilgrims pleaded with guards of the two shrines to let them in, but they remained closed. Many of the faithful searched for telephones to assure relatives they were safe.

Meanwhile, insurgents fired two mortar rounds in central Baghdad yesterday, injuring one Iraqi civilian. Also, a rocket landed in a gas plant at the Dora oil refinery in Baghdad, injuring a worker and triggering a blaze that was quickly extinguished.