Militiamen barraged US forces with mortars in the holy city of Najaf yesterday in one of the more intense attacks on American troops, who have been holding back their full firepower to avoid enflaming the anger of Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority.
The shelling began overnight, when some 20 mortars hit in and around the former Spanish base that US troops moved into a week ago. There were no casualties. Heavy mortar fire resumed at midday yesterday, and US troops returned fire.
Troops sealed off the area around the base, and several tanks were seen moving their cannons, though not firing. Sniper fire could also be heard.
The US military has deployed at the base and outside Najaf to crack down on radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. But they have been hampered in responding to frequent al-Sadr fire on their position because the military is being extremely cautious, fearing that stepped up fighting would anger Shiites, whose holiest shrine is at the center of the city, about 5km from the US base.
Violence on Sunday killed nine US soldiers across the country. In the heaviest attack, five Navy sailors and one Army soldier were killed in a mortar barrage against a base near Ramadi, west of Baghdad.
Meanwhile, Thomas Hamill, a truck driver from Mississippi who escaped from his Iraqi kidnappers after three weeks in captivity, flew to Germany yesterday for a reunion with his wife.
Hamill pried open a door in the house where he was being held north of Baghdad when he heard a US patrol passing by Sunday, then led the troops to the house where two Iraqis were captured.
Meanwhile, the US military will likely bring in a new commander for the new Iraqi brigade in Fallujah, an official said yesterday, amid apparent uncertainty over the identities of the Saddam Hussein-era generals to whom the US has handed over control of the guerrilla stronghold.
The Fallujah Brigade, made up of former soldiers from Saddam's army, took up further positions in the cordon around Fallujah, replacing Marines who were pulling back to form an outer cordon. The Iraqi brigade now controls a ring around the southern half of Fallujah and is due to begin patrols inside soon.
Major General Mohammed Latif, a former military intelligence officer, is likely to take command of the brigade, a senior US military official said. He would replace Major General Jassim Mohammed Saleh, who will likely take a subordinate command in the brigade, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Saleh, a former member of Saddam's Republican Guard, moved into Fallujah on Friday at the head of the new brigade.
US officials have acknowledged they did not vet the leaders and members of the new brigade to see how close their ties were to Saddam's regime -- a sign of the military's eagerness to find an "Iraqi solution" to a monthlong siege that had raised an international outcry and strained ties with US-allied Iraqi leaders.
Latif participated in meetings with Marines last week on the creation of the Fallujah Brigade, the top Marine commander, Lieutenant General James Conway, said over the weekend. Conway said he believed that Latif had been exiled by Saddam's regime for several years.
"He is very well thought of, very well respected by the Iraqi general officers. You can just see the body language between them. And if I had to guess at this point, when we have this brigade fully formed, he demonstrates a level of leadership that tells me that he could become that brigade commander," Conway said.
The US official, speaking yesterday, said the decision to put Latif in charge emerged as it became clearer that he was more influential.
"General Saleh as I understand it will be working at the battalion level, not the brigade level," he said.
US officials have shown confusion over the identities of the generals in the Fallujah force. One US officer said Saleh had been involved in an assassination plot against Saddam and that three of his children had been executed -- apparently mistaking him for Mohammed al-Shehwani, a former Air Force officer who in April was named as head of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service and whose three sons were killed by Saddam.
US officials say the Fallujah Brigade will crack down on hard-core guerrillas in the city -- though the force itself will likely include some of the gunmen who last month were involved in fighting against the Marines. US commanders say the insurgent movement in Fallujah has been led by foreign Arab militants and former figures from Saddam's regime.
Saleh on Sunday told the Arab television station Al-Arabiya that he did not believe there were any foreign fighters in the city.
Air Force General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday that the US military is still seeking the same objectives in Fallujah: "Deal with the extremists, the foreign fighters," rid the city of heavy weapons and find those behind the March 31 killing and mutilation of four American civilian security workers.
Meanwhile, Hamill was headed to Germany, where he will have a checkup at a US military hospital and see his wife, Kellie.
Hamill, 43, a truck driver from Macon, Mississippi working for the Halliburton Corp subsidiary KBR, was abducted by gunmen on April 9 after his convoy was attacked outside Baghdad. His fate had been unknown since he appeared in a videotape released the next day by his captors, who threatened to kill him within 12 hours unless the siege of Fallujah was lifted.
On Sunday, Hamill reappeared in the town of Balad, 70km north of Baghdad, when he ran up to a patrol from the 2nd Battalion, 108th Infantry, part of the New York National Guard, and identified himself. He then led the soldiers to the house from which he had just escaped, and two Iraqis with an automatic weapon were arrested.
Hamill had an infected gunshot wound in his left arm. The video images of Hamill soon after his abduction showed his left arm in a sling, suggesting he'd been wounded during the attack on his convoy.
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