Gunmen open fire on Najaf peace marchers

Gunmen opened fire today on thousands of Shiite Muslim marchers heading from Kufa to the twin city of Najaf, killing at least one.

The gunfire came from a base between the two cities housing Iraqi national guardsmen and US troops, witnesses said.

The marchers, supporters of rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, fled after the gunfire broke out. Casualties were carried away in private civilian vehicles and ambulances.

An Associated Press reporter saw at least one body and witnesses reported seeing other casualties.

Earlier, a mortar barrage hit the main mosque in Kufa, killing 27 people and wounding 63 others as they prepared to march on Najaf.

Thousands of people were crowded around the mosque at the time and ambulances raced to the scene to take scores of wounded to a nearby hospital.

Bodies lay around the mosque compound, a stronghold of followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, witnesses said.

Hussam al-Husseini, an al-Sadr aide, said one mortar shell hit the mosque compound itself and two others hit near the mosque gates. Others gave conflicting accounts of the number of explosions.

Mohammed Abdel Khadum, an official at al-Furat al-Awsat hospital in Kufa, said 27 people were killed and 63 injured. The morgue overflowed with bodies, and more than a dozen corpses had to be stored in the hospital’s garden.

Outside the hospital’s gate, crowds of angry people gathered, shouting “God is great!”

It was unclear who fired the mortars. US. Forces have fought Shiite insurgents loyal to al-Sadr in neighbouring Najaf and sporadically in Kufa for three weeks.

“We were gathering outside and inside the mosque preparing to head to Najaf when two mortar shells landed, one inside the mosque and the other on the main gate,” said Hani Hashem, bringing an injured friend to the hospital. “This is a criminal act. We just wanted to launch a peaceful demonstration.”

Iraq’s top Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini Al-Sistani, returned home to Iraq yesterday from London, and was heading to Najaf today in a bid to end the fighting.

Al-Sistani’s aides had called on supporters across the country to march on Najaf to support his peace bid.

Al-Sadr has regularly delivered a sermon during Friday prayers at the Kufa mosque.

Al-Husseini said another mosque in Kufa had also been hit by mortar rounds. It was unclear whether there were casualties there.

Kufa is just a few miles northeast of Najaf, where fierce clashes continued today with US warplanes bombing suspected positions of al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia and explosions booming across the city.

Al-Sistani is calling for Najaf and Kufa to be declared weapons-free cities, for all foreign forces to withdraw from Najaf and leave security to the police and for the Iraqi government to compensate those harmed by the fighting here, according to al-Sistani aide Hamed al-Khafaf.

The grey-bearded cleric wields enormous influence among Shiite Iraqis, and his arrival in Iraq had bolstered hopes the crisis can be resolved peacefully.