By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer
KARBALA, Iraq - Three American soldiers were killed and seven were wounded in a midnight clash at a Shiite Muslim cleric's headquarters in this shrine city, the U.S. military said Friday. Witnesses said at least eight Iraqis also died in the fighting.
The U.S. troops, who were not identified pending notification of relatives, were members of the 101st Airborne Division, Maj. Mike Escudie of U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla. said in a statement.
The statement also said two Iraqi security forces personnel were killed and five wounded in the attack near Imam Abbas Mosque in Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad.
"The engagement involved an exchange of small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades as Iraqi authorities and coalition military police were investigating reports of armed men congregating on a road near the mosque after curfew," the statement said.
Gunfire broke out again Friday morning in the same area in this restive city, where Thursday night's encounter may have signaled a new U.S. determination to disarm religious-based militias and enforce curfews.
An armored personnel carrier of the U.S.-led coalition appeared to be firing Friday morning as screaming men, women and children fled for cover. Shiite gunmen defiantly shouted, "Allahu Akbar!" — "God is great!" The gunfire soon ended, but young Shiites still manned rooftop and street positions with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
Malik Kazim, a gunman who said he was involved in the fighting, said it involved an apparent joint American-Polish patrol of armored vehicles and Humvees that passed by the offices of a local senior Shiite Muslim cleric, Mahmoud al-Hassani, which were guarded by at least 20 gunmen.
The international patrol ordered the gunmen inside the offices to comply with a 9 p.m. curfew, which has been in effect in Karbala since Tuesday, Kazim said.
Iraqi policemen who were at the scene said one fellow officer was killed in the firefight, and Kazim said seven of his comrades were killed.
Kazim said intense gunfire lasted about a half-hour. Dozens of bullet holes, some large-caliber, could be seen in walls in the area Friday morning.
Al-Hassani is one of Karbala's lesser-known ayatollahs — the highest clerical rank in Shiism. Rivalries among Shiite factions have led to sporadic violence in recent weeks, as the sect, suppressed under deposed President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), flexes its new political muscle as a majority in Iraq .
Thursday night's clash also appeared to reflect a determination by the U.S.-led coalition to minimize any challenge to its authority from armed religious militants.
Polish forces lead an international brigade responsible for postwar security in the Karbala area, 50 miles south of Baghdad, commanding some 9,500 peacekeepers from 21 nations, including 2,400 Poles. The 31,000-square-mile area was handed over by American forces last month.
Separately, American soldiers in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk drove off attackers late Thursday in a hail of bullets after assailants fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a U.S. compound in an apparent assassination attempt on an Iraqi politician working with the coalition, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Friday.
The assailants apparently escaped but their bullet-riddled car crashed into a wall where it exploded, U.S. 2nd Lt. Casey Thoreen of the 173rd Airborne Brigade said. No Americans were killed or injured.
U.S. and Iraqi officials said the attack came after two rocket-propelled grenades were fired at a local office of the Iraqi National Accord, a former opposition movement headed by Iyad Allawi, current president of the Iraqi Governing Council.
The officials believed the attackers were targeting Mohammed Khorshid, an INA official who was visiting from Baghdad.
A bomb blast also hit a police station in Kirkuk, wounding a policeman, Iran's official news agency IRNA reported. Station chief Lt. Col. Anwar Qader Ahmad said the attackers were Saddam loyalists.
The violence came after an explosion damaged part of the main pipeline running from Iraq's northern oil fields earlier Thursday, forcing a reduction in the amount of oil available for export.
In Irbil, 200 miles north of Baghdad, police also shot and killed the driver of a car packed with 220 pounds of explosives as he approached the police ministry office, the U.S. military said.
It was unclear whether the pipeline explosion near the city of Hadeetha, 125 miles northwest of Baghdad, was caused by saboteurs, a senior Oil Ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
He said the explosion ripped open part of the main pipeline linking the northern oil fields to the al-Doura oil refinery and the Mussayab power plant. The oil in the pipeline was earmarked for domestic use.
To maintain domestic supplies, the official said exports from the southern oil fields will be reduced by 80,000 barrels a day to make up for the shortage from the northern oil fields.
There have been many attacks on pipelines in the region, complicating the American rebuilding effort in Iraq, which depends on oil revenue.
Meanwhile, the U.N. Security Council adopted a U.S.-backed resolution aimed at attracting more troops and money for his country and speeding up its independence.
The deaths in Karbala mean a total of 197 U.S. soldiers have been killed by bombings, ambushes and other hostile incidents since President Bush declared an end to major combat operations May 1.
This is the 3rd or fourth time its been shut down. What kills me, is that it's never in the news when it's re-opened. So the impression most of us are left with is that there hasn't been any product in this pipeline for months, which is not the case.
Not so. it's 197 from all causes.
How come these news organizations don't hire fact-checkers?