Iraq: Fierce battle shakes Najaf's old city

Explosions and gunfire shook Najaf’s Old City in a fierce battle between US forces and Shiite militants, who remained in control of a revered shrine here as negotiations dragged on for its handover to religious authorities.

Late yesterday, US warplanes and helicopters attacked positions in the Old City for the second night, witnesses said. Militant leaders said the Imam Ali Shrine compound’s outer walls were damaged in the attacks.

But the US military said it had fired on sites south of the shrine, from which militants were shooting, and did not hit the compound wall.

Also yesterday, five US troops were reported dead in separate incidents, and a US journalist held hostage for more than a week and threatened with death if US forces did not leave Najaf was released by his captors.

The clashes in Najaf yesterday appeared more intense than in recent days as US forces sealed off Najaf’s Old City.

But Iraqi government officials counselled patience, saying they intended to resolve the crisis without raiding the shrine, one of Shia Islam’s holiest sites.

“The government will leave no stone unturned to reach a peaceful settlement,” Iraqi National Security adviser Mouaffaq al-Rubaie said.

Senior government officials said last week an Iraqi force was preparing to raid the shrine within hours to expel the militants loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, but interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi quickly backed off that threat.

Such an operation would anger Shiites across the country and could turn them against the new government as it tries to gain legitimacy and tackle a 16-month-old insurgency.

In the Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni insurgency, four US Marines with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were killed in separate incidents, the military announced yesterday.

As of Friday, 949 US service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq in March 2003, according to the US Defence Department.

Late yesterday, US journalist Micah Garen, who was kidnapped August 13 in the southern city of Nasiriyah, was released along with his Iraqi translator at al-Sadr’s offices there after the cleric’s aides appealed for his freedom.

In Najaf, US tanks rumbled down deserted streets yesterday, while sporadic gunfire filled the air.

The roads leading to the shrine were muddied and filled with chunks of concrete ripped from the streets. Black smoke trailed from a building, as the clatter of automatic gunfire rang out.

In the afternoon a fierce battle between the military and al-Sadr’s militants broke out when insurgents launched a mortar barrage at US troops, witnesses said. Calm returned to the city after about half an hour.

Several mortar attacks targeted police offices in the city, but no one was injured, officials said.

At least three people were killed and 18 injured during overnight fighting, said Tawfiq Mohammed of Najaf General Hospital.

Fighting in the nearby city of Kufa on Saturday killed 40 of the militants, according to the Interior Ministry. However, Mahmoud al-Soudani, an al-Sadr aide, called the claim “government propaganda” and said only one militant had been killed.

Al-Sadr himself has not been seen in public in days, but al-Soudani said the cleric was in good health and remained in Najaf.

Also yesterday, Polish Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski paid a visit to his troops in Iraq and said the persistent attacks here would not deter Poland from fulfilling its commitments.

Attending a memorial Mass for a Polish soldier killed in a bombing Saturday, he said: “Let us make a vow that his death will not be in vain, that we will go on with our mission.” Poland has about 2,400 troops in Iraq.

:: A delegation from Iraq’s interim government visited the country’s leading Shiite cleric yesterday in London, where he had gone for medical treatment, the government said in a statement.

He underwent an angioplasty, a procedure to unblock a coronary artery, on August 13 and doctors said his condition as stable, his office said.

“We are glad that Grand Ayatollah Sistani was now well enough to receive us following his operation,” said Zuhair Hamadi, the secretary-general and head of Iraq’s Council of Ministers Secretariat.

“We very much hope that he will return safely to Iraq when his doctors allow, considering his presence there is important for our entire nation,” Hamadi said in the statement.

The 73-year-old cleric wields enormous influence among Iraq’s majority Shiites. He lately called for an end to the fighting in Najaf.