BAGHDAD, 24 August 2004 — US warplanes bombed Najaf’s cemetery and the historic center yesterday while US soldiers fought fierce battles on the ground with a Shiite militia in the town.
Tanks approached within 250 meters of the Imam Ali Mosque, where many militants have sought refuge, the closest they have come to the compound in recent days. US snipers were on rooftops around the shrine, witnesses said.
Gunfire rang throughout the streets and black smoke rose over the Old City neighborhood, where much of the fighting has been centered. Earlier in the day, militants fired mortars at US troops, who responded with artillery, residents said.
A hole one meter across was punched into the outer wall of the mosque compound on Sunday night, scattering debris across the marble floor. Supporters of Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr said it had been caused by a missile fired by a US helicopter. The US military denied it had targeted the mosque.
Marine Maj. Jay Antonelli said militants hiding in a parking garage 400 meters from the mosque’s outer wall fired rocket-propelled grenades at US troops, who responded with artillery and mortars. Speaking in Baghdad, Antonelli said US troops were trying to secure the city, but were being fired at from the mosque compound and other areas. “We’re not doing any offensive operations. This is all in response to them,” he said.
The size of the militant force in the Old City appeared to have greatly decreased yesterday with the US advance, witnesses said. Medics said at least two insurgents were killed and four others injured.
In Baghdad’s Shiite Sadr City neighborhood, an explosion, apparently from a US air attack, killed four people and injured nine, said Dr. Qasim Saddam, director of Sadr Hospital. The US military said it was unaware of the incident.
Sadr’s whereabouts were unknown. Police in Najaf said they had information that he had fled to Sulaimaniya, in Kurdish northern Iraq. But Sadr’s aides and local government officials in Sulaimaniya denied the report.
The US offensive began after a weekend of fruitless talks between Sadr’s aides and religious authorities to hand over the keys of the mosque to Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, Iraq’s most respected Shiite cleric.
In an apparent relaxation of Sadr’s demand that the Mehdi Army guard the mosque even once it is handed over, a top Sadr aide said Shiite authorities would be responsible. “The religious establishment will be in charge of security and they should have their own security force,” said Ahmed Al-Shaibany, also a Mehdi militia commander Speaking to reporters inside the mosque, Shaibany said the cleric’s fighters would become “normal citizens” if US forces returned to their bases and the southern city became stable.
Militants said they had enough food, water and ammunition to last for weeks, maybe months. “We are here to kill and we have enough stamina,” said Hamed Khudayir, 54, referring to himself and his 10-year-old son Ali. The uprising is a brazen challenge to interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. It has also triggered violence in seven other southern and central cities, including Baghdad.
Meanwhile, assailants in Tikrit, 130 km north of Baghdad, killed one Turkish citizen and two Iraqis along a road as they headed to the northern city of Kirkuk late Sunday, Maj. Neal O’Brien, a spokesman for the US Army’s 1st Infantry Division, said.
In Kirkuk, Sharzad Hassan, 31, an official with the pro-US Patriotic Union of Kurdistan was gunned down by unknown attackers late Sunday in a drive-by shooting, police officer Sarhat Qadir said.
— Additional input from agencies
