Allies in battle against unexpected Iraqi enemy

Allied troops fought bloody battles against an enemy they did not expect in Iraq today – Shi'ites who were downtrodden during Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime.

Firebrand Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, wanted for murder, urged his followers to go on an anti-American crusade and they heeded his call.

Three British soldiers were injured – none seriously – in overnight fighting with al-Sadr’s followers in the southern town of Amarah. The gun battles left 15 Iraqis dead and eight wounded, said coalition spokesman Wun Hornbyckle.

Fifteen Iraqis were killed and 35 injured in gun fights with Italian soldiers in Nasiriyah. Twelve Italians troops were slightly wounded.

Members of al Sadr’s al-Mahdi militia kidnapped two South Korean aid workers in the town and demanded the withdrawal of Italian forces in exchange for their release. They were released later but the Italians did not leave

Coalition spokeswoman Paola Della Casa said the Iraqi attackers used civilians as human shields during the attacks. She said a woman and two children were among the dead.

In the Shi'ite city of Kut, a Ukrainian soldier was killed and five were wounded when al-Sadr supporters attacked an armoured personnel carrier.

Two Polish and three Bulgarian soldiers were wounded in a shoot-out near the city of Karbala this afternoon.

Clashes that have killed 20 American troops and at least 100 Iraqis since the weekend.

US officials have said they will move soon to arrest al-Sadr, who today left his fortress-like complex in the city of Kufa, south of Baghdad, where he has been holed up since Sunday.

He vowed to shed his own blood in the drive to oust the American occupation and was surrounded by militiamen pledging to resist any attempt to capture him.

Al-Sadr moved to his office in the nearby holy city of Najaf, in an alley near the city’s holiest shrine.

“I have pledged not to allow a drop of blood to be shed except my own,” al-Sadr said in a statement. “I’m prepared to have my own blood shed for what is holy to me.”

He said he was moving to avoid violence in a mosque. “I feared that the sanctity of a glorious and esteemed mosque would be violated by scum and evil people,” he said. The Americans “will have no qualms to embark on such actions.”

US marines today battled guerrillas on the edge of Fallujah in an operation to crush the insurgency there.

The US military reported five marines and three soldiers killed in operations over the past two days.

The bulk of the coalition force has remained on Fallujah’s edge, apparently held at bay by tough resistance from anti-American fighters against marine forays probing the outskirts of the city in the heart of the violent Sunni Triangle.

American commanders have vowed to root out insurgents after last week’s murder and mutilation of four American civilian security guards.

Scenes of Iraqis dragging charred bodies through the streets and hanging two of them from a bridge raised widespread revulsion and showed the depth of anti-US sentiment in the city.

A force of Marines pushed into an eastern neighbourhood, clashing with guerrillas today. Gunmen carrying automatic weapons were seen in the streets.

Troops broke into houses in the neighbourhood, carrying out searches, and entered a mosque, witnesses said.

The confrontation with al-Sadr and the offensive against Fallujah appeared to be a tougher approach by US forces ahead of the hand over of the country to Iraqi rule.

The offensive against Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, targets Sunni Muslim insurgents who have been waging a campaign of violence against US forces and their allies for months.

The showdown with al-Sadr could increase tensions with Iraq’s Shi'ite majority, although most Shi'ites reject the 30-year-old al-Sadr as a renegade and look to older, more moderate clerics for leaderships.

US officials appear to be counting on Shi'ites not to rally around al-Sadr if they move against him.

The US revealed yesterday that it is seeking to arrest al-Sadr for the murder of Abdel-Majid al-Khoei, a rival Shiite cleric who was stabbed to death by a mob at a Shi'ite shrine in the Najaf a year ago.

Paul Bremer, the top civilian administrator in Iraq, conceded today not all was going smoothly as the coalition approached the June 30 hand over date.

“We have problems, there’s no hiding that. But basically Iraq is on track to realise the kind of Iraq that Iraqis want and Americans want, which is a democratic Iraq,” he said in Baghdad.

The deaths in the past two days brought to at least 614 the number of Americans killed in Iraq since the war began.

A senior officer in Washington said military commanders have begun studying how they might increase troops in Iraq should violence spread.

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld promised today that American military commanders in Iraq will get additional troops if they request more soldiers to fight a growing Shi'ite uprising.

“They are the ones whose advice we follow on these things,” Rumsfeld said.

“They will decide what they need, and they will get what they need,” Rumsfeld said.

The US has about 135,000 US troops in Iraq.