Posted on 04/16/2004 6:47:41 AM PDT by BlackVeil
KUFA, Iraq (Reuters) - Blasts shook Iraq's holy Shi'ite town of Kufa on Friday after militiamen loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said they ambushed a convoy of vehicles from an American force that is building up nearby.
"I saw at least two Humvees on fire and we also attacked armored personnel carriers," said one fighter in the town adjacent to Najaf, home to the holiest Shi'ite shrines and where Sadr has been hiding from U.S. forces ordered to kill or capture him.
"We attacked them again, but then they started mortaring our position so we had to retreat," said the man, clad in the black uniform of Sadr's Mehdi Army militia, as columns of smoke rose above the town and militiamen tried to evacuate at least two wounded colleagues across a bridge.
Defiant at Friday prayers in Kufa, Sadr said he would not disband his militia under any circumstances "because I did not create it on my own but with the cooperation of the Iraqi people."
Hospital sources said at least five people were killed and 20 wounded, most of them seriously, in the fighting.
There was no immediate comment from U.S. forces which have reinforced Spanish and Polish soldiers in the area around Najaf, prepared to root out Sadr and his militia, which took control of the city center earlier this month, if peace talks fail.
Sadr's militia launched an uprising against occupying troops this month and has fought skirmishes in several cities.
U.S. troops also fought Sunni insurgents in Falluja overnight and a hospital official in the city west of Baghdad said 15 people were killed and 20 wounded, just hours after America's top general said truce talks could not go on for ever and more military action might be necessary.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers said Iraq's U.S. governor Paul Bremer was using "multiple channels" in talks to pacify Falluja and avoid fighting in Najaf.
Polish officers commanding international troops in the Najaf region were unhappy at the prospect of an assault on the holy city by 2,500 U.S. troops poised outside, Polish media said.
Sadr said earlier Iraqis would hit back with unimaginable "force and severity" if U.S. forces carried out their threat to kill or capture him.
"Their threats to kill or detain me are a result of their weakness and collapse in the face of what has happened, and is happening, in Iraq," he told Lebanon's as-Safir newspaper.
FALLUJA FIGHTING
Lebanon's top Shi'ite cleric said Washington would fan fury across the Muslim world if it invaded Najaf or attacked Sadr.
"All of this will set the ground burning beneath their feet, not just in Iraq, but in the whole of the Islamic world," Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah said in his Friday sermon.
American warplanes attacked targets in Falluja and a U.S. armored vehicle was destroyed, witnesses said.
U.S. Marines launched their assault on the city west of Baghdad on April 5 after the killing and mutilation of four U.S. private security guards there the previous week. Doctors say more than 600 Iraqis have died in fighting in Falluja since.
A week ago, the U.S. military said it had suspended offensive operations in Falluja but would hit back if attacked. Talks to stabilize a shaky truce have led to relative calm interspersed with intense bouts of fighting and air strikes.
In the holy city of Kerbala, where Sadr's followers are in control, three Iraqi policeman were killed in clashes with Shi'ite militiamen on Friday, witnesses said.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said ahead of talks with President Bush that they shared the goal of creating a stable, democratic and self-ruled Iraq, but refused to discuss whether they differed on how to achieve this.
"How we get there is the obviously the difficult issue, particularly with security at the moment. But our determination to get there remains undimmed," Blair said after meeting U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in New York.
HOSTAGES
Three freed Japanese hostages flew from Iraq to Dubai on Friday, but two Japanese remained missing, along with other foreigners seized in this month's spate of kidnappings.
A Danish businessman in Iraq to set up a sewerage business has joined the hostage list. Danish Broadcasting News said the man, in his 30s, was taken during a highway robbery, probably late on Tuesday, in Taji, north of Baghdad.
Kidnappers demanding an end to the siege of Falluja and the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq have seized more than 40 foreigners, although many have been released.
Italy has vowed to keep its troops in Iraq despite the videotaped execution of one of four Italian hostages held there.
But at Baghdad airport, 117 people from former Soviet countries, mainly Russia and Ukraine, arrived in convoys to board a plane sent from Russia to evacuate them. They included one man brought by ambulance, who said he had been shot in the leg earlier this week while swimming in a river outside Baghdad.
It was the second day of an evacuation organized after the kidnap and release of eight Russians and Ukrainians this week.
April has been Iraq's bloodiest month since Saddam Hussein was ousted a year ago. The U.S. military has lost at least 92 troops in combat since March 31 -- more than the total killed in the three-week war that toppled Saddam.
The U.S.-led administration is due to hand power to an as yet undefined interim Iraqi government on June 30 and U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has been in Iraq to consult on the transition.
Brahimi, due in New York soon to report back, said this week he was confident a caretaker government could be formed next month, but stressed that security must improve before planned elections could be held in January.
(Additional reporting by Michael Georgy, Will Dunham and Chris Helgren in Baghdad and Charles Aldinger in Washington)
I noticed that and I looked for other news, but there isn't anything yet. There is a near news blackout around Najaf - they keep showing file footage rather than current stuff. It will be a while before we get the full story.
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