US destroys al-Sadr's Baghdad office

US aircraft destroyed a Baghdad office of a radical Shiite cleric, killing two people and injuring six, his followers said today.

In Fallujah, US Marines began joint patrols with Iraqi forces under an agreement that ended the siege of that city.

There was no comment from US command on claims that US aircraft had bombed the office of Muqtada al-Sadr, who has led an insurgency against the US-led occupation and is wanted by coalition forces.

Sheik Abdul-Hadi al-Darraji, a spokesman for al-Sadr, said the air attack was about midnight.

At the same time, US troops also opened fire from nearby streets, destroying a car and a house, he said.

Al-Darraji said two people were killed and six injured but did not say whether they were al-Sadr fighters or whether the casualties were due to the airstrike or ground fire.

The office in the Shiite neighbourhood of Sadr City lay in rubble today.

Meanwhile, a previously unknown group warned foreigners in Basra – especially Americans, Britons and Kuwaitis – that they will be targeted for kidnapping and assassination.

The warning was made in a videotape from the Al-Taff Martyrs Brigade broadcast by Al-Jazeera television, an Arabic language satellite station based in Qatar.

The statement was read by a masked man flanked by armed men, their faces also covered.

“The Al-Taff Martyrs Brigades announce that all workers in the foreign and Arab companies in Basra, particularly the Kuwaiti companies, are target for abduction and killing,” the statement said.

“We warn them strongly against walking the streets of Basra. For us, they are same as the Americans, the British and their loyalists. There is no difference between any of them.”

Al-Taff refers to the 7th century battle near Karbala in which Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, and his followers were massacred by the Umayyads, their rivals for leadership of the Muslim community.

Shiite Muslims, who form the majority of Iraq’s 25 million people, revere Imam Hussein.

US forces are facing fighters loyal to al-Sadr in Karbala and other southern cities.

Over the weekend, al-Sadr’s fighters clashed with British troops in Basra, Iraq’s second largest city.

In Kirkuk, gunmen opened fire on a vehicle today, killing a South African and a New Zealander and their Iraqi driver, the city’s police chief said.

The group was headed to the centre of the city to shop when their car was attacked, said Major General Anwar Mohammed Amin, the head of Iraqi security forces there.

The South African and the Iraqi driver were killed in the attack and the New Zealander later died of wounds sustained in the shooting, said police chief Torhan Abdel Rahman Yusuf.

The two foreigners worked on a construction project in the city, Yusuf said.

Insurgents have targeted foreigners working on reconstruction projects, attacks that have slowed down the reconstruction and put in question the critical US goal of rebuilding Iraq.

In Fallujah, US Marines in Humvees and armoured vehicles entered the Sunni Muslim city west of Baghdad in a convoy with Iraqi security forces in pickup trucks.

The first Iraqi pickup truck flew the red, white and black Iraqi flag, which the Iraqi Governing Council has proposed changing to the outrage of many Iraqis.

“It is a good day for peace in Fallujah,” said Marine Major General James Mattis, after meeting with local leaders.

“Nobody shoots, everybody waves and smiles. Any day that there is no shooting it is good.”

Marines began the siege of Fallujah on April 5 after the killing and mutilation of four US civilian contractors.

The Fallujah brigade is expected to number some 1,500 fighters, many of them soldiers from the old Iraqi army who live in the area.

The US-led occupation authority has handed control of seven Iraqi government ministries from western advisers to US-appointed Iraqi ministers, as part of the US plan to give nominal sovereignty to an Iraqi government on June 30.

US occupation chief Paul Bremer turned over the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources to its Iraqi minister, saying the office was ready to govern itself. Some US advisers will remain on the ministry staff.

“Today we pass another milestone on the path to full Iraqi sovereignty,” Bremer said in an outdoor ceremony in Baghdad’s US-controlled green zone, as machine gun-wielding security guards scanned the audience from behind their sunglasses.

Bremer has said he will leave Iraq as soon as authority is handed over on June 30.