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I just want to see if I've got this straight: We're being very careful in Najaf not to damage a shrine being used by gunmen trying to kill us? Last time I checked, shrines were for praying, meditating and maybe even mulling. But not once, to my knowledge, for murdering. For months now, the revered Imam Ali Shrine has become a fortress: a Koran-bless Alamo. Only the Alamo wasn't a church. Just like this place is no longer a shrine.

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi militants kidnapped a British journalist in the southern city of Basra and threatened to kill him if a U.S. assault on the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf was not halted in 24 hours, witnesses and a video tape showed on Friday. The witnesses said gunmen seized the journalist from a hotel in mainly Shi'ite Basra. Hours later a video tape released in the city showed a hooded gunman standing next to the journalist and threatening to kill him if the attack on Najaf was not stopped.

The Iraqi forces affirm to control the cemetery of Najaf (police force) The Iraqi police force affirms to have taken the control of the cemetery of Najaf, fortified town of the militiamans of the radical head Moqtada Sadr Friday evening afterwards of violent one engagements implying the United States Air Force, affirmed with the AFP a person in charge for the police force with Najaf. It was not possible to confirm this information with Najaf where the accesses of the old city and the cemetery were completely blocked by the engagements between the army of Mehdi de Moqtada Sadr...