US bombing raids shake Najaf
Sporadic gunfire, explosions and a US bombing raid shook the city of Najaf today as militants retained control of a revered shrine, raising fears that a plan to end the crisis could collapse amid bickering between Shiite leaders.
Early today, US warplanes bombed Najaf’s Old City. The sounds of shelling could be heard in the streets, witnesses said.
The US military could not confirm the bombing, but said operations in Najaf were ongoing.
US forces also appeared to have sealed off the Old City, restoring a cordon that had been loosened in recent days.
Three mortar shells exploded near a police station that had been the frequent target of attacks by militants loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. No one was injured, witnesses said.
Fighting in the nearby city of Kufa on Saturday killed 40 of the militants, according to a source in the Interior Ministry.
However, Mahmoud al-Soudani, head of al-Sadr’s office in west Baghdad, said only one militant had died.
The two sides clashed sporadically in Najaf today. At least three people were killed and 18 injured during the fighting overnight.
An unofficial mediator and distant relative of the militant leader pleaded with al-Sadr to disarm his militants, pull them out of the shrine and disband his militia immediately.
In separate violence north of Baghdad today, a car bomb exploded in the town of Khalis, killing two people and injuring 14 others.
In Jur al-Nadaf, 20 kilometres (12 miles) south of Baghdad, attackers sprayed a police vehicle with machine-gun fire, killing two policemen before fleeing, said an Interior Ministry spokesman.
In Baghdad, assailants fired two mortar shells into the city centre today, wounding at least one civilian.
In the southern city of Basra, an Iraqi intelligence officer kidnapped nearly a week ago and threatened with death if US and Iraqi forces did not end the violence in Najaf, was found shot dead, police said.
A group, calling itself the Defence of the Holy Sites Brigades, said they had snatched the man.
Meanwhile, a series of attacks on Saturday targeting coalition and Iraqi forces throughout Iraq, killed a US soldier, a Polish soldier and five Iraqis.
Militants have been using car bombs, assassinations, sabotage, kidnappings and other attacks in a 16-month insurgency aimed at destabilising the country.
But the violence in Najaf, which had spread to other Shiite communities, posed the greatest risk to the interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.
Government officials had threatened to raid the mosque to set an example to other insurgent groups, but such an operation risked turning the nation’s majority Shiites against the government.
The crisis appeared on the verge of resolution at the end of last week, when the insurgents decided to remove their weapons from the shrine and turn the holy site over to representatives of Iraq’s top Shiite cleric.
But the transfer was hit by arguments over its implementation. Al-Sadr aides said they tried to give the shrine’s keys to al-Sistani’s representatives, who refused to accept them.
In a hastily called news conference in Baghdad, Hussein al-Sadr, who had headed a peace delegation to Najaf earlier in the week, appealed to the militants to end the standoff.
The stand-off has frustrated Najaf residents, who have suffered water and electricity cuts, had their streets rocked by explosions and seen scores of people killed since the fighting started.
