BAGHDAD, 23 August 2004 — Gunfire and explosions shook Najaf yesterday as fighting broke out between supporters of Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr and US forces. Talks for the handover of the Imam Ali Mosque to Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani were stalled.

The clashes erupted when Sadr’s Mehdi Army militiamen attacked US troops with mortar rounds, and the military fought back, witnesses said. Calm returned to the city after about half an hour.

Early yesterday, US warplanes bombed the Old City, the center of the more than two weeks of fighting, and the sounds of shelling could be heard in the streets.

US forces appeared to have sealed off the Old City, restoring a cordon that had been loosened in recent days. Tanks were seen in the streets some 800 meters from the Imam Ali Mosque. At least three people were killed and 18 injured in Saturday night’s fighting, said Tawfiq Mohammed of Najaf General Hospital.

Sadr aide Ali Sumeisim said the talks for the mosque handover had hit a snag over a request by Sadr’s side that Sistani send a delegation to take an inventory of precious items in the mosque — thought to include jewelry, relics and carpets — to head off any claim that Sadr’s men had stolen anything from the shrine.

“We were told by people in Sayyed Sistani’s office that they cannot form the committee in the current circumstances. We told them that Sayyed Sistani has representatives in Najaf ... and we believe a committee can be formed,” Sumeisim told reporters.

Sadr’s aides had earlier said that his militia would continue to guard the mosque after any handover, defying calls from interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi to disband and vacate the mosque. A Sistani spokesman in London told Al Arabiya television “no specific time has been set” for a handover of the mosque’s keys.

In other violence, an Indonesian and two Iraqis were killed, while a Filipino was wounded, when their convoy was ambushed in the northern city of Mosul. Another two Iraqis were later killed in another shooting, they said.

US journalist Micah Garen was released by his kidnappers and was at the office of Sadr in Nassiriyah, Al-Jazeera TV said.

The US military said four Marines assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force have been killed in separate incidents in volatile Anbar province.

— Additional input from agencies