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Renewed fighting in Najaf
22/08/2004 14:56 - (SA)
Najaf - Sporadic gunfire, explosions and a US bombing raid shook the city of Najaf on Sunday as militants retained control of a revered shrine, raising fears that a plan to end the crisis here could collapse amid bickering between Shiite leaders.
Early on Sunday, US warplanes bombed Najaf's Old City, the scene of much of the more than two weeks of fighting here, and 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 on Sunday 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 firebrand 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, called the claim "government propaganda" and said only one militant had died in Kufa on Saturday.
Several fatalities
The two sides clashed sporadically in Najaf throughout Sunday morning. At least three people were killed and 18 injured during the fighting overnight, said Tawfiq Mohammed of Najaf General Hospital.
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.
"We are in a race with time," Hussein al-Sadr said late on Saturday.
In separate violence north of Baghdad on Sunday, a car bomb exploded in the town of Khalis, killing two people and injuring 14 others, including a deputy provincial governor, Bassam al-Khadran, who was lightly wounded, Iraqi officials said.
A suicide bomber detonated the car, laden with explosives, as al-Khadran was travelling to work in a small convoy, said Gen Waleed al-Azawi, chief of police for Diyala province. Both fatalities and seven of the injured were al-Khadran's bodyguards, he said. One civilian was also wounded.
In Jur al-Nadaf, 20km south of Baghdad, attackers sprayed a police vehicle with machine-gun fire, killing two policemen before fleeing, said police Col Adnan Abdul-Rahman of the interior ministry.
Kidnapped man's body found
In Baghdad, assailants fired two mortar shells into the city centre on Sunday, wounding at least one civilian and damaging a shop and several houses, said Abdul-Rahman.
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 dead, his body riddled with bullets, police said on Sunday.
In a video shown Tuesday on the pan-Arab Al-Jazeera television station, a group, calling itself the Defence of the Holy Sites Brigades, said they had snatched the man.
Abdul Jawad's body was found in a deserted area on Saturday, said Basra police commander Brig Gen Mohammed Kadhim al-Ali. It wasn't clear if the group was behind Abdul Jawad's slaying.
On Saturday in Najaf, US troops and al-Sadr's fighters fought brief but heavy clashes, punctuated by gunfire and explosions, with one blast hitting the street 50m from the sacred Imam Ali Shrine at the centre of the standoff.
Marine Capt Carrie Batson said US troops came under mortar attack in the Old City and destroyed two militant mortar positions with gunfire and an Apache helicopter attack. The fighting died down after about 45 minutes.
- SAPA
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