Sadr vows to fight to the end

2004-08-09 15:47

Najaf, Iraq - Radical Iraqi Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr vowed to fight on until his "last drop of blood" as intense clashes engulfed Najaf for a fifth straight day, while six people were killed in a suicide bombing on Monday.

"I will defend Najaf until my last drop of blood," Sadr told a news conference at the Imam Ali shrine, as mortar and machine-gun fire rocked the central holy city.

"I am an enemy of America and America is my enemy until the day of the last judgement," he said, rejecting calls by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi for his men to lay down their arms and leave the city.

Artillery and tank fire, backed by air power, battered central Najaf where Sadr's Mehdi Army were hunkered down in the vast cemetery and around the city-centre shrine, a militia stronghold since his spring uprising against foreign troops.

Meanwhile, Defence Minister Hazem Shaalan warned that the Iraqi army could join the offensive to "crush" the militia, which he claimed was receiving weapons from Iran in an interview with Al-Arabiya television.

"The operations are ongoing and the army will surely intervene if these operations become bigger," Shaalan said, echoing the trenchant line of other government officials.

Since the fighting erupted on Thursday, when the Mehdi Army attacked the main police station and governor Adnan al-Zorfi requested US support, the military estimates that more than 360 insurgents have been killed.

But a spokesman for Sadr has insisted that only 15 militiamen have been killed and 35 wounded, the majority from cluster bombs fired by US troops.

In Sadr's Baghdad stronghold, the government imposed a curfew from 16:00 to 08:00 in an effort to clamp down on escalating insecurity.

Mortar bombs rained down around the district council hall in the sprawling Shiite neighbourhood of Sadr City from around 08:00, missed their target and slammed into adjacent houses, but there were no reports of casualties.

Abu Moqtada, a local Mehdi Army leader, told press that the militia had fired 10 to 15 mortars at the building. "As long as we continue to fight with the government, incidents like this will happen," he said.

- SAPA