SAMAWA, Iraq, 7 July 2007 — Deadly clashes have erupted between Shiite militants and police in the southern Iraqi town of Samawa, police said yesterday, while separately roadside bombs killed at least eight Iraqi troops. Meanwhile, US forces killed three insurgents in raids in western Iraq in which a senior Al-Qaeda leader involved in supplying weapons for attacks and preparing propaganda videos was captured, the military said.

A Samawa police captain, speaking on condition of anonymity, said fighting had broken out on Thursday when police attempted to crack down on armed members of Moqtada Al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia. Fighting was continuing, he said. “The militias planted bombs on the main roads around the Sadr office in the city using large quantities of explosives to prevent the police advance,” the captain said, adding police posts had been bombarded with mortars.

Hillal Al-Hatchami, an emergency medic at the town’s Muthanna Hospital, said at least one policeman and four civilians had been killed in the fighting and 26 people wounded. Muthanna province governor Mohammed Ali Al-Hassani told reporters: “We will not negotiate with the militias as they are outlaws. We will work to impose law and order in the city.”

Meanwhile, further north near the town of Hilla, a roadside bomb hit an Iraqi army patrol on the main route east of town yesterday and killed four soldiers, according to Lt. Haider Al-Husseini. Four more members of the security forces, police commandos, were killed in a similar attack near the ruined Al-Askari shrine in the northern city of Samarra.

At least four more Iraqis were killed in armed attacks in the north of the country, according to security officials, including Capt. Hilkurd Mohammed of the Iraqi army who was gunned down in the oil city of Kirkuk.

Iraq has also executed an alleged Al-Qaeda militant found guilty of taking part in the 2003 killing of a top Shiite cleric, who also confessed to helping slay 19 Italians, an Iraqi justice official said yesterday. Oras Abdul-Aziz Mahmood was hanged on Tuesday for his part in the April 2003 car bombing that killed Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer Al-Hakim and 82 others at Najaf’s Imam Ali mosque, said Justice Ministry Undersecretary Busho Ibrahim.

“Last Tuesday, Oras was executed following the guilty verdict for the killing of ... Hakim,” Ibrahim said.