U.S. Launches Fresh Assault on Sadr Forces in Najaf

By Michael Georgy

Sat Aug 21

NAJAF, Iraq - U.S. forces launched a fresh assault on Shi’ite
rebels in the embattled Iraqi city of Najaf on Sunday after talks on
transferring control of the mosque at the center of a two-week siege ran
into difficulties.

A U.S. military AC-130 gunship unleashed rapid cannon and howitzer fire
on positions held by rebels loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a
Reuters witness said.

The attack lit up the area with white flashes and were followed by a
blast. Smoke drifted over the old city in Najaf near rebel positions.

Flashes were also seen on the outskirts of the city. It was not clear
what caused them. Tracer fire and orange flashes went skyward.

The early morning violence followed a day of relative calm while
negotiations continued to try to end a two-week Shi’ite Muslim uprising
led by Sadr’s forces that has helped drive world oil prices to record highs.

Militiamen had earlier brandished weapons around the Imam Ali mosque,
dampening hopes that an offer by Sadr to hand the shrine over to the
clerical establishment would end the siege, the biggest challenge yet
faced by Iraq (news - web sites)’s interim government.

"Bring those Americans here to fight hand to hand," one of Sadr’s
followers said before the latest outbreak of fighting.

"They are cowards. They stay thousands of feet away in their airplanes.
They are scared, they know we will slaughter them," he said, biting his
finger for emphasis.

In nearby Kufa, where Sadr has in the past led prayers at the mosque,
witnesses said U.S. forces had also clashed with militiamen on Saturday.

TALKS HIT A SNAG

A top Sadr aide said talks between the fiery cleric’s representatives
and Iraq’s top Shi’ite religious authorities were continuing with a view
to handing the shrine over to the control of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Sistani, the most influential cleric in the majority Shi’ite country, is
in London recovering from surgery.

But the aide, Ali Smeisim, said the talks 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.

The Imam Ali mosque is the holiest Shi’ite shrine in Iraq.

"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," Smeisim told reporters.

Sadr’s aides had earlier said that his militia would continue to guard
the mosque after any handover, precisely the outcome that the
two-month-old government wants to prevent.

A spokesman in London for Sistani told Al Arabiya television "no
specific time has been set" for a handover of keys to the mosque.

"TRAITORS"

In the shrine, a teenager hacked with a pick at a block of ice to help
cool Sadr’s fighters, who yelled slogans vilifying Prime Minister Iyad
Allawi, who has called on them to lay down their weapons and leave.

"We are winning, we will win over Iyad Allawi and the traitors
collaborating with the Americans," they chanted.

Some held banners that said: "Where is the bullet that will grant me
martyrdom?"

Sadr’s uprising has fueled fears of disruption to Iraqi oil production
and has helped push crude prices to new highs.

Saboteurs detonated an explosive near an oil pumping station in southern
Iraq on Saturday but caused only minor damage, witnesses said.

Iraq’s Health Ministry said on Saturday morning that at least 21 Iraqis
had been killed and five wounded in Najaf over the past 24 hours. Three
people were killed in Baghdad, where U.S. troops have fought Shi’ite
gunmen in the Sadr City slum.

The U.S. military said insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a
U.S. military vehicle in southern Baghdad on Saturday, killing one
soldier and wounding two others.

In a separate attack, two U.S. soldiers were killed and three wounded on
Friday by a roadside bomb near Samarra.

The attacks brought to 711 the number of U.S. troops killed in action in
Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion last year. One Polish soldier was
killed and six wounded on Saturday when a car bomb exploded next to
their convoy near the town of Hilla, an army spokesman said.

The soldier’s death brings the number of Polish fatalities in Iraq to 14
since Poland took charge of the 8,000-strong multinational force in
south-central Iraq last September. (Reuters)

(Additional reporting by Khaled Farhan in Najaf and Walid Ibrahim in
Baghdad)

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=6036153