Fourteen die in clashes with British troops

Clashes between British forces and Shiite militia in the southern Iraqi city of Amarah left 14 people dead and 42 injured today, according to the Health Ministry.

Local officials said many of the killed and injured were militants.

In the fighting, British forces attacked positions that militants were using to attack patrols and bases with rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, said Major Ian Clooney, a British spokesman. The British suffered two minor casualties.

During the day, British tanks were patrolling the major roads in Amarah, while Mahdi Army militants walked through the alleys, witnesses said.

Coalition forces also dropped leaflets from planes telling the people of Amarah that the fighting was only hurting them.

In the southern cities of Nasiriyah, Basra and Samawah, insurgents targeted coalition forces with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, causing no injuries, Major Clooney said.

“The insurgents are using cover and buildings to launch indirect attacks rather than open conflict,” he said.

US troops postponed a planned offensive to root out Shiite militiamen they have been battling for a week in the holy city of Najaf, as the militants’ leader, cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, urged his followers to battle on even if he is killed.

Fighting persisted in the vast cemetery near Najaf’s holiest site, the Imam Ali Shrine, where US commanders say Mahdi Army militiamen have been holed up.

Earlier today, the Marines said they were training Iraqi security forces in preparation to launch a major assault to root out the fighters. But later, a Marine commander said the offensive was postponed. No timeframe was given.

“Preparations to do the offensive are taking longer than initially anticipated,” said Marine Major David Holahan. “It doesn’t matter now, they know we’re coming.”

It was not known whether commanders were planning a raid into the Imam Ali Shrine, an action that could enrage Iraq’s Shiite majority and Shiites worldwide.

Najaf’s governor has given US troops permission to enter the shrine compound.

The top health official in Najaf, Falah al-Mahani, said the deteriorating security situation was causing “a real catastrophe” for the health services.

“Ambulances are prevented from reaching the injured people by the clashing parties. Our staff are not able to reach their hospitals. We are paralysed,” he said.

Elsewhere at least six Iraqis were killed and nine wounded in an explosion in a market north of Baghdad today.

A roadside bomb exploded at the market in Khan Bani Saad, about six miles south of Baqouba, a Health Ministry official said.

Gunmen killed the head of a regional office of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the country’s largest Shiite group.

Ali al-Khalisi, the head of SCIRI’s Diyala province was killed in Mahmoudiya, about 25 miles south of Baghdad, when gunmen drove up to his car and fired at him.

Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s al-Tawhid and Jihad group claimed responsibility for the killing in a statement posted on an Islamic web site.

Production resumed at Iraq’s vast southern oil fields after authorities reached an accord with militant Shiites who had threatened to attack the country’s vital export pipelines for crude, an Iraqi oil official said.