Fighting damages sacred shrine again

NAJAF, Iraq – Iraq’s most sacred Shiite shrine was slightly damaged and at least 13 Iraqis were killed in fighting Tuesday between American forces and militiamen loyal to a Muslim cleric. The U.S. military charged that gunfire by Shiite militants damaged the shrine.

In Baghdad, a suicide attacker’s car bomb wounded at least five Iraqis, including a 10-year-old boy, U.S. military officials said. Police said they believed the bomb may have targeted the nearby Australian Embassy and detonated prematurely.

It was the second time the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf has been hit in the past two weeks of fighting. On May 14, machine-gun fire struck the golden dome, leaving four small holes, and each side blaming the other.

After fighting in Najaf eased Tuesday, crowds loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr gathered at the shrine to look at the damage. The inner gate, leading into the tomb of Imam Ali Ibn Abu Talib, appeared to have been hit by a projectile. Debris was scattered on the ground.

Explosions and gunfire were heard Tuesday around Najaf’s Revolution of 1920 Square and the cemetery, a warren of paths and tombs offering hiding places for militiamen armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

There were no reports of U.S. casualties.

In other developments:

* The Navy said Tuesday that it is sending a second aircraft carrier, the USS John C. Stennis, whose home port is San Diego, into the western Pacific, apparently to compensate in part for the planned deployment to Iraq this summer of an Army combat brigade based in South Korea.

* Comprehensive testing has confirmed the presence of the chemical weapon sarin in the remains of a roadside bomb discovered earlier this month in Baghdad, a U.S. defense official said.

* The Army plans to send into combat thousands of soldiers whose normal jobs are to play the role of the enemy at training ranges in California and Louisiana, defense officials said Tuesday.

* Seven Iraqi men whose hands were ordered cut off by Saddam Hussein met with President Bush at the White House on Tuesday, along with a Houston doctor who helped fit them with prosthetics.

* The U.S. Army has for the second time awarded a contract to supply the Iraqi security forces to a consortium of companies – ANHAM, a joint venture based in Vienna, Va. – with little arms experience and ties to controversial Iraqi leader Ahmad Chalabi, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Associated Press

Iraqis arrive at a holy shrine in Najaf on Tuesday after fighting broke out between U.S. troops and Shiite militiamen.

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