BAGHDAD, 15 May 2004 — US forces sent tanks against Moqtada Sadr’s militia into Najaf’s vast cemetery yesterday as the Shiite cleric warned a rival faction against siding with the US-led coalition.
Explosions and gunfire rocked Najaf for six hours and there was fighting around the main police station, less than a mile from some of the holiest shrines. Sadr aides showed journalists three holes in the gilded dome of the Imam Ali Mosque.
Each side pointed the finger of blame at the other. “Let me make it clear we did not attack the shrine of Imam Ali,” US military spokesman Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said in Baghdad.
In the evening, Sadr’s militiamen attacked the offices of the US-led civilian administration in the southern town of Nassiriyah, 375 km southeast of Baghdad, after taking over the governor’s office.
Andrea Angeli, the administration spokesman there, said he was among 20 international staff trapped in the building along with four Italian reporters as Italian troops and Filipino security guards traded fire with the militiamen.
In Najaf, officials said four dead and 26 wounded, mostly civilians caught in the crossfire, were taken to hospital. Many more people were believed to have been killed in the cemetery, but their bodies had yet to be collected.
At least seven US tanks thrust deep into the cemetery, a city within a city covering several square kilometers where Shiites from all over the world wish to be buried.
US forces blasted suspected positions of Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia, who have been using the sprawling graveyard to stage hit-and-run attacks on US positions on the edge of town. Clouds of white smoke rose as shells burst among the tombs.
