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Relative quiet in Najaf
21/08/2004 08:47 - (SA)
Najaf - Calm in Najaf carried into a second day on Saturday, after militiamen handed the keys of their mosque stronghold to the top Shiite Muslim cleric in Iraq, despite fierce fighting in the twin city of Kufa.
For three hours overnight, US forces and Shiite Muslim militiamen clashed around a Kufa mosque and courthouse, just 10 kilometres east of Najaf, said fighters loyal to radical cleric Moqtada Sadr.
A huge hole had been torn in the outer wall of the Maitham al-Tamam compound. Part of the court building opposite was blackened and gutted by fire, with caked blood smeared on the windows, said an AFP correspondent.
Militiaman Abu Mohammed al-Helu said fighters had fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the court building, being used as a US post, accusing US forces of trying to storm the mosque.
A US military spokesperson had no immediate information about the incident.
In Najaf, another AFP correspondent said heavy shooting lasting less than an hour appeared to come from a northern US base towards the Old City, where militiamen have been hunkered down, shortly after midnight (20:00 GMT on Friday).
By dawn, not a single gunshot or mortar could be heard, following a more than two-week standoff between Sadr's Mehdi Army and US-led Iraqi government forces.
Friday's handover of the keys to representatives of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani appeared to provide a face-saving way out of the crisis for Sadr, but it was not clear when or if the militia would vacate the shrine.
"We are staying in the shrine as pilgrims, but if we were asked to lock the shrine, we would vacate it," said Sadr spokesperson Sheikh Ahmed al-Shaibani late on Friday when asked if militiamen would leave the shrine.
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