Al-Sadr orders shrine handover

Sporadic gunfire echoed through Najaf today after a night of heavy US bombing that saw radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr order his fighters to hand control of a revered Najaf shrine to top Shiite religious authorities.

US tanks were on the streets and residents reported seeing some of al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia pulling out of the Old City, but no major skirmishes were reported.

Explosions and gunbattles raged in Najaf all day yesterday and into the night, intensifying hours after US forces bombed militant positions and Iraq’s prime minister made a “final call” for the cleric’s militia to surrender.

US Marine Captain Carrie Batson said US warplanes had been “clearing Muqtada militia positions” east of the revered Imam Ali Shrine last night, when at least 30 explosions shook the Old City.

Before dawn, US forces also fired precision-guided bombs at militiamen who were firing mortars at US troops in the neighbouring cemetery and Old City, Batson said.

Militants yesterday bombarded a Najaf police station with mortar rounds, killing seven police and injuring 35 others. Another round hit near the same station today, but inflicted no casualties.

In Baghdad, troops from the US Army’s 1st Cavalry Division pulled out of the Sadr City slum, scene of fierce fighting the day before between US forces and supporters of the rebel cleric.

US Captain Brian O’Malley said soldiers “went all the way through the city and back” but pulled out today to respect the Muslim Sabbath.

Militants said five fighters and five civilians were killed today during the clashes in Sadr City. The Health Ministry said 10 people were killed and 79 were injured.

In Fallujah, US warplanes launched two air strikes today on the troubled Iraqi city, considered a hotbed of Sunni Muslim insurgents. Two people were killed and six injured in the first attack just after midnight, said Dia’a al-Jumeili, a doctor at Fallujah’s main hospital.

A second warplane fired at least one missile into an industrial area of the city later today. It exploded in an open field, leaving a crater and spraying shrapnel across the doors of nearby shops, but causing no serious damage and no casualties.

Elsewhere in Iraq, militants attacked oil facilities in the north and south, fired mortars at US Embassy offices in the capital, injuring one American, and threatened to kill two hostages, a Turkish worker and a US journalist.

In a speech, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi had warned the radical cleric to disarm his forces and withdraw from the shrine after his government threatened to send a massive Iraqi force to root them out.

Defying that ultimatum, al-Sadr sent a telephone text message vowing to seek “martyrdom or victory”, and his jubilant followers inside the shrine danced and chanted.

A top al-Sadr aide said the cleric had ordered his militia to turn over control of the shrine where they have been holed up for two weeks. But he said he would not disband his Al Mahdi Army.