NAJAF, Iraq – Militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia battled U.S. and Iraqi troops Thursday in Najaf, sparking clashes in other Shiite areas that killed at least 20 Iraqis and a U.S. soldier. An al-Sadr spokesman threatened a “revolution” unless American forces agree to a new cease-fire.
During the daylong fighting in Najaf, a U.S. helicopter was shot down and its wounded crew evacuated. A revered Shiite shrine was also slightly damaged, witnesses said. U.S. warplanes bombed a cemetery on the outskirts of the city where militants were hiding, the military said.
The fighting raised fears of a return of the large-scale uprising launched in April by al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia, which at that time battled U.S. and coalition troops in several cities in the first major Shiite violence against the Americans. The confrontation dragged on for two months, until Iraqi politicians and religious leaders worked out a series of truces.
After nightfall Thursday, al-Sadr’s side said it wanted to restore the truces that have kept a relative calm for months.
Al-Sadr “announced that we are committed to the truce and that (U.S.) forces must honor the truce,” said Ahmed al-Shaibany, a spokesman for the cleric in Najaf. If U.S. forces do not agree, “then the firing and igniting of the revolution will continue.”
The reigniting of widescale violence now would cause serious difficulties for coalition forces and the Iraqi interim government, already struggling against an unrelenting insurgency by Sunni militants.
Residents of Najaf called the battles in the city the fiercest they have seen. It began when Mahdi Army militants attacked a police station about 1 a.m. with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire, officials said.
U.S. troops joined in, and the fighting continued well into Thursday night.
In other violence Thursday, a pair of insurgents dressed as police opened fire outside a police station while a third barreled forward in a vehicle filled with explosives and blew up, the Interior Ministry said.
The attack in Mahawil, 50 miles south of Baghdad, killed six people and wounded 24 others, the Health Ministry said. The two gunmen escaped, said Sabah Kadhim, an Interior Ministry spokesman.
In central Baghdad, insurgents fired three rockets late Thursday, one of them hitting a hotel compound where foreign journalists and foreign contractors stay. The rocket hit outside a restaurant at the Palestine Hotel, leaving a small crater and shattering windows but causing no serious damage and no injuries.
Associated Press
Insurgents loyal to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr battle U.S. troops Thursday in Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood.
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