US helicopter gunships opened fire on Shiite militants hiding in Najaf's massive cemetery yesterday as US patrols armed with speakers warned the militants to leave the city immediately or face death.
US tanks drove into the cemetery, explosions shook the streets and black smoke rose over parts of the city, but the fighting with militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia appeared more sporadic than in recent days.
A large fire broke out at a hotel about 300m from the Imam Ali Shrine, Najaf's holiest site, which fighters have reportedly been using as a base. Witnesses said insurgents were firing from inside the hotel when US forces returned fire.
In a new tactic to try to quell the violence, US military vehicles equipped with loudspeakers drove through the streets warning residents to stay away from the fighting and for militants to put down their weapons and leave Najaf or else they would be killed.
"We ask residents to cooperate with the Iraqi army and police," said a voice through a loudspeaker. "There will be no truce or negotiations with terrorists."
Small clashes also broke out in the Baghdad Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City, despite a nighttime curfew that was imposed on Monday.
Mehdi Army militants have been targeting US patrols with gunfire and have tried to set up roadblocks in the neighborhood, but US forces tore them down, said US Captain Brian O'Malley of the 1st Brigade Combat Team. There were no US casualties, he said.
While US and Iraqi forces were trying to quell the eruption of Shiite violence, attacks by Sunni Muslim militants persisted.
A roadside bomb detonated as a US military vehicle drove on a street in central Baghdad yesterday, slightly injuring two soldiers, the military said.
Another insurgent group also warned in a videotaped message that it would launch a campaign of attacks on government offices in Baghdad starting yesterday, telling employees to stay away.
The sixth day of Shiite violence came after al-Sadr warned on Monday that he would fight "until the last drop of my blood has been spilled."
Clashes intensified around Basra, where a British soldier was killed and several others wounded in fighting with militia near the cleric's office on Monday, the UK's Ministry of Defense said. Three militants were killed and more than 10 others wounded, a senior Iraqi police official said.
US President George W. Bush said on Monday that coalition forces were "making pretty good progress about stabilizing Najaf."
Much of the fighting in Najaf remained centered on the vast cemetery near the Imam Ali Shrine. The US military said Mehdi Army gunmen were launching attacks from the cemetery and then running to take refuge in the shrine compound.
Also see stories:
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS