BAGHDAD, 20 May 2004 — Violent clashes between US forces and Shiite militias continued in Iraq yesterday as the first US serviceman accused of abusing Iraqi prisoners received the maximum penalty in a court-martial. Eight Iraqis were killed and 11 others wounded during overnight and early morning clashes in the cities of Karbala and Hillah, about 80 kilometers south of Baghdad.

In another development, a US helicopter fired on a wedding party yesterday in western Iraq, killing more than 40 people, Iraqi officials said. The US military said it could not confirm the report and was investigating.

Lt. Col Ziyad Al-Jbouri, deputy police chief of Ramadi, said between 42 and 45 people were killed in the attack, which took place about 2:45 a.m. in a remote desert area near the border with Syria and Jordan. He said the dead included 15 children and 10 women. Dr. Salah Al-Ani, who works at a hospital in Ramadi, put the death toll at 45.

Meanwhile, US soldier Spc. Jeremy Sivits received the maximum penalty — one year in prison, reduction in rank and a bad conduct discharge — in the first court-martial stemming from mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by US forces.

Sivits had pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge but maintained he had been asked by his superiors to take photos of abuses against Iraqi detainees in Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison, among them that of a human pyramid of hooded naked prisoners.

So far seven service members have been accused with abuse, but Iraqi citizens and politicians yesterday remained skeptical about the US investigations into the scandal.

Raja Habib Al-Kuzai, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, complained that the proceedings against Sivits took place behind closed doors and many Iraqis in Baghdad branded the trial as a public relations exercise by the US-led occupation.

The hearing in the US controlled Green Zone was open to the public, but not broadcast on television. A limited number of Arab news networks were allowed to attend the trial but human rights organizations were barred from entry to the courtroom.

As the court-martial was taking place in the capital, the city of Karbala was facing its latest casualties in the ongoing battle between occupation forces and militias loyal to rebel Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr.

Four Iraqis died and nine were injured, as US forces came within 50 meters of the Imam Hussein Mosque, according to Ali Mussa, the head of the Al-Hussein Hospital.

Three people were killed and four wounded in the Najjareen neighborhood when a US tank firing sporadically hit a taxi carrying seven people, reports said.

However, despite the fighting, some 1,000 supporters of Iraq’s moderate senior cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani also gathered peacefully in Karbala, calling for the withdrawal of US troops from the city.

In Hillah, gunmen killed local official Qassem Abdel Amir Ajam, his bodyguard, and his driver during a visit to the northern outskirts of the city. Ajam belonged to the Iraqi Communist Party and had been appointed to the municipality after the fall of Saddam Hussein.