Posted on 04/04/2004 5:37:47 PM PDT by Happy2BMe
KUFA, Iraq (Reuters) - Spanish-led troops and Iraqi police fought a three-hour gun battle with Shi'ite militiamen near Najaf that left 20 Iraqis and four Salvadoran soldiers dead on Sunday, witnesses and medical officials said.
In Baghdad, clashes between U.S. soldiers and Shi'ites killed at least one Iraqi and wounded many. As night fell, fighting continued in the poor Sadr City district as locals set two Humvees ablaze and hid behind walls waiting to fire rockets.
The shooting in Kufa, near Najaf, began after protesting militiamen marched on a Spanish-run military base to denounce the arrest of an aide to a radical Shi'ite cleric and the closure by U.S. officials of a militant Baghdad newspaper.
In a statement from Madrid, Spain's Defence Ministry said four soldiers from El Salvador, fighting alongside the Spanish, had been killed and nine wounded.
Dr Falah al-Numhna, Najaf's director general for health, said 20 Iraqis were killed and at least 200 wounded in the battle. He said at least two Iraqi police were among the dead.
The violence was likely to heighten a charged mood in Spain, where 191 people were killed last month by bombs blamed on Islamists. The newly-elected Socialists have vowed to withdraw the 1,300 Spanish troops from Iraq unless the U.N. takes charge.
A spokesman for the Spanish military in Iraq told Spanish radio the militiamen had opened fire first, attacking the base with gunfire from at least three positions. Coalition troops then returned fire, he said.
Witnesses said the demonstrators, many of them armed, had thrown stones at a military vehicle arriving at the base and shortly afterwards Spanish-led troops and Iraqi police at the base had opened fire on the crowd from several directions.
Black-clad members of the Mehdi Army, a banned militia loyal to radical anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, returned fire at the heavily-defended garrison. Fighting continued for around three hours. A Reuters correspondent said most of the dead he saw were wearing the uniforms of the Mehdi Army.
Sadr, 30, called on supporters to stop protests, saying they were futile. He said he would stage a sit-in in Kufa mosque and not give in until his demands were met.
"Terrorise your enemy, God will reward you well for what pleases him. It is not possible to remain silent in front of their abuse," his statement said.
VIOLENT PROTESTS
Witnesses to the fighting in Kufa said militiamen, some of them teenagers, would dart out from an area of workshops and junkyards and fire at the base before running for cover again.
"I was standing next to the tree and then I felt fire in my leg and I fell to the ground," said Hamza Mussewi, an unarmed protester who was shot in the knee.
In the northern city of Kirkuk, a suicide car bomber wounded two U.S. soldiers and five Iraqis at another pro-Sadr protest. There were also protests in the southern cities of Basra and Nassiriya.
Sadr's supporters have marched in the past week against the closure of al-Hawza newspaper, a mouthpiece for Sadr that U.S.-led authorities accused of inciting anti-American violence.
They have also protested against the arrest of Sadr's aide Mustapha Yacoubi, who they say was seized in Najaf on Friday by occupying troops. Spanish troops deny detaining Yacoubi, but said other coalition members might have arrested him.
"Sheikh Moqtada Sadr is our leader. He's going to lead Iraq. Today we fought the occupation troops and we will keep fighting them until we take over," said 23-year-old Mohammad Hanoun, a protester wielding a chain in Baghdad.
SHI'ITES INVIGORATED
Oppressed under former president Saddam Hussein, Iraq's Shi'ites have grown increasingly vocal in the year since U.S.-led forces ousted Saddam and want their clear majority of the population to be reflected in a future Iraqi government.
"We don't have any option now but to liberate our country via armed struggle," said Arkan Hatab, a Sadr follower.
The United States plans to hand over sovereignty at the end of June to an Iraqi government whose make-up is yet to be determined. U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi arrived in Baghdad on Sunday with a team formed to advise on how best to form it.
A spokeswoman for the British Ministry of Defence said in London that British troops had clashed with demonstrators in the southeastern Iraqi city of Amara on Sunday. She said there were no reports of casualties.
Separately, the U.S. military said two U.S. Marines were killed in attacks over the weekend in a volatile province west of Baghdad where earlier this week four U.S. contractors were killed, burnt and dragged through the streets by a jubilant mob.
The deaths raise to 411 the number of U.S. troops killed in action in the year since U.S.-led forces invaded to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
(Additional reporting by Salem Ureibi, Akram Saleh and Khaled Farhan in Kufa, Adnan Hadi in Kirkuk, Faris Mehdawi in Baquba, and Fiona O'Brien and Michael Georgy in Baghdad)
And everybody said......
Sorry, if he doesn't want to run for election under the new constitution, which he has every right to do, then he will not lead Iraq.
And if he keeps instigating this kind of crap, then he will die.
Man, yeah .... no Shiite ....
The looting is when I soured on Rumsfeld - or more accurately Rumsfeld attitude translated into policy in regards to the looting.
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