Fierce fighting sweeps Iraqi cities

FALLUJAH – US-led forces battled Sunni Muslim guerrillas and a spreading Shi’ite uprising yesterday, as Iraqi anger was inflamed by a blast in the grounds of a mosque that witnesses said killed 25 people.

In the last three days 35 American and allied soldiers and at least 200 Iraqis have been killed in the heaviest fighting since the fall of Saddam Hussein nearly a year ago. The spiralling two-front war, with new flashpoints flaring across the country as backers of radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr take up arms, is calling into question US plans to transfer sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30.US President George W Bush – campaigning for re-election in November with opinion polls showing plunging support over Iraq – held phone talks with close ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair, but officials dismissed any suggestion of a crisis.However, some countries with troops in Iraq signalled the situation was growing serious.Ukrainian troops pulled out of the eastern city of Kut after clashes and regrouped at a base camp.Japan said its troops would suspend reconstruction work in Samawa, in the south, because of security concerns.Battles raged between US Marines and guerrillas in the Sunni towns of Fallujah and Ramadi west of Baghdad, while US-led forces fought Shi’ite militants in the capital, Kut and the central Iraq cities of Kerbala and Najaf.- Nampa-ReutersThe spiralling two-front war, with new flashpoints flaring across the country as backers of radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr take up arms, is calling into question US plans to transfer sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30.US President George W Bush – campaigning for re-election in November with opinion polls showing plunging support over Iraq – held phone talks with close ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair, but officials dismissed any suggestion of a crisis.However, some countries with troops in Iraq signalled the situation was growing serious.Ukrainian troops pulled out of the eastern city of Kut after clashes and regrouped at a base camp.Japan said its troops would suspend reconstruction work in Samawa, in the south, because of security concerns.Battles raged between US Marines and guerrillas in the Sunni towns of Fallujah and Ramadi west of Baghdad, while US-led forces fought Shi’ite militants in the capital, Kut and the central Iraq cities of Kerbala and Najaf.- Nampa-Reuters