Fighting continues in Najaf, Baghdad

NAJAF – Intense fighting continued for a sixth straight day in Najaf around the central city’s vast cemetery yesterday between US and Iraqi forces and Iraqi Shi’ite Muslim militiamen loyal to radical cleric Moqtada Sadr.

Artillery and tank shells pounded positions in the labyrinthine graveyard where Sadr’s Mehdi Army have dug in, and which was the scene of heavy bombardment Monday, said an AFP correspondent. Sadr has vowed to fight to “defend Najaf until my last drop of blood” and rejected calls by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi for his men to lay down their arms and leave the city.In the cleric’s Baghdad bastion of Sadr City, clashes raged for three and a half hours early Tuesday when a US patrol came under repeated attack as it drove through the centre of the sprawling slum.Militiamen attacked the “large number” of troops with rocket-propelled grenade, small arms fire and makeshift bombs from 4:30 am (0030 GMT) to 8:00 am, said a US military spokesman, refusing to say how big the patrol had been.He said there had been Iraqi casualties, but no injuries to US soldiers or damage to any equipment.Sporadic gunfire and mortar rounds continued to explode in Sadr City later in the morning.Shops remained boarded up and the main road closed to traffic as armed militiamen roamed the streets, said an AFP correspondent.A series of strong explosions came from the direction of the restive suburb at around 7:00 am before US helicopters flew over the northeast area.A curfew had officially been imposed on Monday until 8:00am yesterday in the wake of fierce fighting between Sadr followers and US forces that has left many dead.According to the US military, four US soldiers and more than 360 militiamen have been killed in the Najaf fighting since Thursday, which shattered a June truce that had quelled Sadr’s spring uprising against coalition troops.Northwest of Kut, three civilians were wounded, including one seriously, when a roadside bomb exploded as a Ukrainian convoy passed through Numaniyah, said police local chief Colonel Ali Jabbar Kadhim.The Shi’ite city of Kut, south of Baghdad, fell to Sadr loyalists in the spring before US forces and Iraqi police wrested back control in April.- Nampa-AFPSadr has vowed to fight to “defend Najaf until my last drop of blood” and rejected calls by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi for his men to lay down their arms and leave the city.In the cleric’s Baghdad bastion of Sadr City, clashes raged for three and a half hours early Tuesday when a US patrol came under repeated attack as it drove through the centre of the sprawling slum.Militiamen attacked the “large number” of troops with rocket-propelled grenade, small arms fire and makeshift bombs from 4:30 am (0030 GMT) to 8:00 am, said a US military spokesman, refusing to say how big the patrol had been.He said there had been Iraqi casualties, but no injuries to US soldiers or damage to any equipment.Sporadic gunfire and mortar rounds continued to explode in Sadr City later in the morning.Shops remained boarded up and the main road closed to traffic as armed militiamen roamed the streets, said an AFP correspondent.A series of strong explosions came from the direction of the restive suburb at around 7:00 am before US helicopters flew over the northeast area.A curfew had officially been imposed on Monday until 8:00am yesterday in the wake of fierce fighting between Sadr followers and US forces that has left many dead.According to the US military, four US soldiers and more than 360 militiamen have been killed in the Najaf fighting since Thursday, which shattered a June truce that had quelled Sadr’s spring uprising against coalition troops.Northwest of Kut, three civilians were wounded, including one seriously, when a roadside bomb exploded as a Ukrainian convoy passed through Numaniyah, said police local chief Colonel Ali Jabbar Kadhim.The Shi’ite city of Kut, south of Baghdad, fell to Sadr loyalists in the spring before US forces and Iraqi police wrested back control in April.- Nampa-AFP