Al-Sadr hurt in Najaf fighting

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has been wounded in the fighting in Najaf, his spokesman said today.

Al-Sadr, who has led an uprising against coalition and Iraqi troops for more than a week, is said to be hiding in Najaf’s sacred compound housing the Imam Ali shrine, surrounded by his followers.

His aide, Ahmed al-Shaibany, told Arab TV networks al-Sadr was injured during clashes, but it was not immediately clear how.

Al-Shaibany told pan-Arab network al-Jazeera al-Sadr received three different wounds.

Another aide, Abdel Hadi al-Daraji, told al-Arabiya television that al-Sadr was injured during shelling.

Al-Sadr had previously urged his followers to carry on fighting even if he was killed or arrested.

Yesterday US troops stormed al-Sadr’s house in Najaf, only to find it empty.

Al-Sadr’s fighters have battled coalition forces since August 5 in a resurgence of a spring uprising that was dormant for two months following a series of truces.

Interior ministry spokesman Col Adnan Abdulrahman said he had received reports al-Sadr was injured in his chest and leg, but could provide no further details

US and Iraqi troops have formed a perimeter around the compound, but have so far made no move to raid it, concerned about touching off an outcry from the Muslim world about desecrating one of Islam’s most revered sites.

Another al-Sadr aide, Abdel Hadi al-Daraji, called on Iraqis to demonstrate today near the Green Zone in Baghdad, the location of most Iraqi government ministries, as well as the US and British embassies, to protest against the fighting in Najaf.

The American offensive threatens to inflame Iraq's Shiite majority - especially if the fighting damages the shrine - and presents the biggest test yet for interim prime minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite who is trying to crush the violence plaguing the country while working to persuade Iraqis of the legitimacy of his unelected government.

Allawi appealed to the militants to give up their arms and leave the Imam Ali shrine, which holds the remains of the exalted Shia saint Ali and where the rebels have hidden during the last week of fighting here.

“These places have never been exposed to such violations in the past,” Allawi said in a statement.

US troops surrounded, and then broke into, al-Sadr’s apparently empty house and later dropped a 500lb bomb on a building about 750 yards away where militants were hiding as part of the effort to crush the uprising by al-Sadr’s Mahdi militia.

Iraq’s top Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who left Najaf for London to undergo medical treatment before fighting broke out, expressed “deep sorrow and great worry” about the violence and called on all sides to end the crisis quickly. His office was working to mediate an end to the fighting, he said.

The offensive in the holy city has already sparked protests among many Shiites.

Nearly 5,000 al-Sadr sympathisers took to the streets in Basra yesterday, demanding US troops withdraw from Najaf and condemning Allawi for working with the Americans. Several hundred Iraqis also protested in Baghdad.

In the nearby city of Amarah, hundreds of Iraqi National Guardsmen said they were joining al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army until the Americans left Najaf, and 16 members of Najaf’s provincial council suspended their membership to protest against the offensive.

Violence across the country, much of it involving al-Sadr’s fighters, has killed at least 172 Iraqis and injured 643 since Wednesday morning, the health ministry said.