BAGHDAD, 28 April 2004 — US troops went on the offensive yesterday after days of besieging two Iraqi towns. In overnight clashes in the southern city of Najaf, US forces killed 64 fighters of Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia. Late last night US aircraft and tanks started blasting the Jolan district of Fallujah.
“I can hear more than 10 explosions a minute. Fires are lighting the night sky,” one witness said. “The earth is shaking under my feet.”
Live television pictures showed two large fires some 150 meters apart.
The fighting came hours after a US deadline for fighters in the city of 300,000 to hand over their weapons expired. Marines have been besieging Fallujah since April 5.
Earlier in the day, US aircraft dropped white leaflets over Fallujah, calling on fighters to surrender. “Surrender, you are surrounded,” the leaflets said. “If you are a terrorist, beware, because your last day was yesterday. In order to spare your life end your actions and surrender to coalition forces now. We are coming to arrest you.”
Hundreds of people have been killed during the siege of the town, the bastion of resistance to the US-led occupation of Iraq.
In Najaf, Shiite militiamen yesterday buried some of their 64 comrades. Seven were killed after a US patrol was attacked and another 57 when US warplanes destroyed an anti-aircraft gun, said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of operations for the coalition.
Local residents said aircraft had destroyed a militia checkpoint. Kimmitt said the fighters fired rocket-propelled grenades at a tank. Staff at two hospitals counted at least 23 dead and 34 wounded. Some of the casualties did not appear to be fighters.
Some of the coffins were taken inside the shrine of Imam Ali for funeral prayers and then buried in Najaf’s main cemetery as the militiamen shouted their support for Sadr.
“The clashes... are a provocation, but the red line has still not yet been crossed,” Qais Al-Khazaali, a Mehdi Army spokesman told the Arab satellite television Al-Jazeera about Monday’s clashes.
“To enter Najaf means to pour scorn on the Muslim holy places whether they are Sunni or Shiite. But we are ready, we are organized and we are coordinated.”
After the major clashes overnight, Spanish troops completed a withdrawal from their Najaf base in preparation for a complete pullout of Spain’s 1,400 troops from Iraq by May 27.
Saddam Hussein, who turns 67 today and was captured in December, was visited by a team including an interpreter and a doctor at a secret location inside Iraq, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
“It happened today, I know there was an interpreter and a doctor and maybe a third person,” Ian Piper, a spokesman for the Geneva-based agency said. “It has been planned for a few days now.”
