US launches major assault on al-Sadr militia

Thousands of American and Iraqi soldiers launched a major assault on militiamen loyal to a radical Shiite cleric in the holy Iraqi city of Najaf today.

By nightfall they had stormed the home of Muqtada al-Sadr who has been masterminding the Shiite uprising against coalition and Iraqi government forces.

But the rebel cleric, who has vowed to fight “until the last drop of my blood has been spilled”, had fled and was thought to be in Najaf’s revered Imam Ali shrine where many of his fighters have sought refuge.

Throughout the day the sound of explosions and gunfire echoed near the shrine and its vast cemetery.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi called on the Shiite militants to put down their weapons and leave the shrine.

“These places have never been exposed to such violations in the past,” he said, adding that the violence has killed many innocent people.

“Our government calls upon all the armed groups to drop their weapons and return to society. We also call upon all the armed men to evacuate the holy shrine and not to violate its holiness.”

Coalition forces were trying to crush the uprising led by al-Sadr, whose fighters have been battling US troops and Iraqi government forces in Najaf and other Shiite strongholds across the country for a week.

“Major operations to destroy the militia have begun,” said marine Major David Holahan.

Thousands of US troops were participating, he said.

US military Humvees moved toward al-Sadr’s house and fought with militants guarding the building, witnesses said. A large fire raged across the street and at least two helicopters flew above the area.

Violence across Iraq since Wednesday morning killed at least 172 Iraqis and injured 643, the Health Ministry said.

Governments and others across the Muslim world called for a halt to fighting in Najaf. Egypt urged the coalition to rely on dialogue instead of force, and Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the international community should intervene to “prevent the massacre of defenceless Iraqi people”.

Iraq’s top Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who left Najaf for London to undergo medical treatment when the fighting began a week ago, expressed “deep sorrow and great worry” and called on all sides to resolve the crisis as soon as possible and prevent it from repeating.

Al-Sistani said in a statement that his office was “continuing to exert efforts with all sides, Iraqi officials and others, to put a quick end to the current tragic situation”.

Lebanon’s most senior Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, criticised Iraq’s interim government for allowing the offensive in a city that is holy to the world’s 120 million Shiites.

The fighting in Najaf risks enraging Iraq’s Shiite majority – including those who do not support al-Sadr’s uprising – if it targets the shrine.

US commanders and Iraqi officials said Allawi would have to approve any operation at the shrine itself and any move at the shrine would be conducted only by Iraqi forces.

Nearly 5,000 al-Sadr sympathisers took to the streets in the southern city of Basra on Thursday demanding that US troops withdraw from Najaf and condemning Allawi for working with the Americans.

Interior Minister Falah Hassan al-Naqib called the militants’ actions a “conspiracy against the Iraqi people”.

Al-Sadr’s fighters have been battling coalition forces since August 5 in a resurgence of a spring uprising that was dormant for two months following a series of truces. The cleric exhorted his followers this week to fight on even if he was killed.

Hundreds of people have fled their homes in Najaf, moving in with relatives and friends in quieter neighbourhoods or out of the city entirely.

“We have put up with hunger, electricity outages and lack of water, but we cannot put up with death,” said Aqil Zwein, 42, who left his home near the cemetery today.