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| Monday, 23 August 2004 |
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US aircraft make new attack on rebels in Najaf NAJAF, Iraq, Sunday (Reuters) U.S. aircraft launched a fresh assault on Shi'ite rebels in the embattled Iraqi city of Najaf early on Sunday after talks on transferring control of the mosque at the centre of a two-week siege ran into trouble. A U.S. military AC-130 gunship unleashed rapid cannon and howitzer fire on positions held by rebels loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a Reuters witness said. The attack lit the area with white flashes and was followed by a blast. Smoke drifted over the old city near rebel positions, and flashes were seen on the outskirts of the city. Tracer fire and orange flashes went skyward in reply. The violence followed a day of relative calm while negotiators tried to end a two-week Shi'ite Muslim uprising led by Sadr's forces that has helped drive world oil prices to record highs. Militiamen had earlier brandished weapons around the Imam Ali mosque, dampening hopes that an offer by Sadr to hand the shrine over to the clerical establishment would end the siege, the biggest challenge yet faced by Iraq's interim government. "Bring those Americans here to fight hand to hand," one of Sadr's followers said before the latest outbreak of fighting. "They are cowards. They stay thousands of feet away in their airplanes. They are scared, they know we will slaughter them," he said, biting his finger for emphasis. In nearby Kufa, where Sadr has in the past led prayers at the mosque, witnesses said U.S. forces had also clashed with militiamen on Saturday. A top Sadr aide said talks between the fiery cleric's representatives and Iraq's top Shi'ite religious authorities were continuing with a view to handing the shrine over to the control of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Sistani, the most influential cleric in the majority Shi'ite country, is in London recovering from surgery. But the aide, Ali Smeisim, said the talks had hit a snag over a request by Sadr's side that Sistani send a delegation to take an inventory of precious items in the mosque - thought to include jewellery, relics and carpets - to head off any claim that Sadr's men had stolen anything from the shrine. The Imam Ali mosque is the holiest Shi'ite shrine in Iraq. "We were told by people in Sayyed Sistani's office that they cannot form the committee in the current circumstances. We told them that Sayyed Sistani has representatives in Najaf ... and we believe a committee can be formed," Smeisim told reporters. Sadr's aides had earlier said that his militia would continue to guard the mosque after any handover, precisely the outcome that the two-month-old government wants to prevent. A Sistani spokesman in London told Al Arabiya television "no specific time has been set" for a handover of the mosque's keys.In the shrine, a teenager hacked with a pick at a block of ice to help cool Sadr's fighters, who yelled slogans vilifying Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who has called on them to lay down their weapons and leave. "We are winning, we will win over Iyad Allawi and the traitors collaborating with the Americans," they chanted. Some held banners reading: "Where is the bullet that will grant me martyrdom?" Sadr's uprising has fuelled fears of disruption to Iraqi oil production and has helped push crude prices to new highs. Saboteurs detonated an explosive near an oil pumping station in south Iraq on Saturday but caused little damage, witnesses said. The U.S. military said a rocket-propelled grenade fired at a U.S. military vehicle in southern Baghdad on Saturday killed one soldier, and a roadside bomb near Samarra on Friday killed two. The attacks brought to 711 the number of U.S. troops killed in action in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion last year. One Polish soldier was killed on Saturday when a car bomb exploded beside a convoy near the town of Hilla, taking the number of Polish deaths in Iraq to 14 since Poland took charge of the multinational force in south-central Iraq last September. |
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