Marines killed in clashes with Iraqi rebels

Last night, reports from the city of Ramadi said dozens of Iraqis attacked a US Marine position near the governor’s palace. “A significant number” of US Marines were killed, with initial reports indicating it may be up to a dozen, said a senior US defence official.

Heavy casualties were inflicted on the attackers as well, US officials said. It was not immediately known who the attackers were.

In nearby Fallujah, marines drove into the centre of the Sunni city in heavy fighting before pulling back before nightfall today. The assault had been promised after the killings and mutilations of four American civilians there last week.

At least eight Iraqis were killed and 20 wounded in the fighting, hospital officials said.

Later, US warplanes fired rockets that destroyed four homes in Fallujah, witnesses said. Rafie al-Issawi, a doctor at Fallujah General Hospital, said the bodies of 26 Iraqis were brought in after the strike, and at least 30 came in with injuries.

US authorities also launched a crackdown on radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his militia after a series of weekend uprisings in Baghdad and cities and towns to the south that took a heavy toll in both American and Iraqi lives.

Meanwhile, fighting in the southern cities of Nasiriyah, Kut, Karbala and Amarah and in a northern Baghdad neighbourhood killed 32 Iraqis and an American, coalition military officials said. More gunfire rang out in the Baghdad’s Sadr City.

In Nasiriyah, 15 Iraqis were killed and 35 wounded in clashes between militiamen and Italian troops, coalition spokeswoman Paola Della Casa told the Italian news agency Apcom.

Della Casa said the Iraqi attackers used civilians as human shields, and a woman and two children were among the dead. Eleven Italian troops were slightly wounded, she said.

In Kut, militiamen attacked an armoured personnel carrier carrying Ukrainian soldiers, killing one Ukrainian and wounding five others, the Ukrainian defence ministry said. Two Iraqis were killed in the fight. Ukraine has about 1,650 troops in Iraq.

Fighting in Amarah between al-Sadr’s followers and British troops killed 15 Iraqis and wounded eight, said coalition spokesman Wun Hornbyckle.

The fighting marks the first major outbreak of violence between the US-led occupation force and the Shiites since Baghdad fell a year ago. The 30-year-old al-Sadr, however, does not have a large following among majority Shiites – many see him as a renegade, too young and too headstrong to lead wisely.

In Fallujah, US marines battled for hours yesterday with gunmen holed up in a residential neighbourhood. For hours into the night, the sides traded fire while teams of marines moved in and out of the neighbourhood, seizing buildings to use as posts and battling gunmen. Helicopters flew overhead, firing at guerrilla hideouts.

The US military brought out a deadly AC-130 gunship to lay down a barrage of fire against the guerrillas. At least two marines were wounded.

“We are several blocks deep in the city of Fallujah,” marine Maj Briandon McGolwan said. He said several helicopters were hit by small arms fire, but none were downed. He said the US military had detained 14 people since yesterday.

Fallujah, a dusty, Euphrates River city 35 miles west of Baghdad, has been a stronghold of the anti-US uprising that sprang up shortly after Saddam Hussein’s ousting a year ago.

The crackdown on al-Sadr, who has drawn backing from young and impoverished Shiites with rousing sermons demanding a US withdrawal, sent his black-garbed militiamen against coalition troops Sunday, Monday and yesterday.

Fearing a US move to arrest him, al-Sadr left a fortress-like mosque in the city of Kufa, south of Baghdad, yesterday, where he had been trapped for days, his aides said.

Al-Sadr issued a statement saying he was ready to die to oust the Americans. He urged his followers to resist foreign forces.

“America has shown its evil intentions, and the proud Iraqi people cannot accept it. They must defend their rights by any means they see fit,” the al-Sadr statement said.

“I’m prepared to have my own blood shed for what is holy to me.”

Al-Sadr moved to his main office in Najaf, in an alley near the city’s holiest shrine, according to a top aide, Sheikh Qays al-Khaz’ali. Hundreds of militiamen were protecting the office today, but there was no independent confirmation al-Sadr was there.

Perhaps more worrisome than the current fight with al-Sadr’s forces is the possibility that he will start drawing support from more mainstream Shiite leaders who have largely supported the Americans until now.

The US-led coalition announced a murder warrant against al-Sadr on Monday and suggested it would move to capture him soon. US officials would not explain why they were only releasing word of the warrant on Monday. They said an unnamed Iraqi judge had issued it in the past months.

US state department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said al-Sadr and his followers were not representative of a religious cause but of “political gangsterism”.

“They’re not acting in the name of religion, they’re acting in the name of arrogating for themselves political power and influence through violence, because they can’t get it through peaceful persuasion,” he said.

Paul Bremer, the top civilian administrator in Iraq, conceded not all was going smoothly as the coalition approached the June 30 handover, a date he said was inviolable.

“We have problems, there’s no hiding that. But basically Iraq is on track to realise the kind of Iraq that Iraqis want and Americans want, which is a democratic Iraq,” he told the US network ABC television.

:: Two South Korean aid workers were set free yesterday, a day after being detained by a Shiite group in southern Iraq, a South Korean foreign ministry official said. The two men were doing relief work in Nasiriyah on Monday, when shooting erupted between Italian forces and Shiite militiamen.