Militias keep grip on 3 Iraq cities

BAGHDAD -- Shi'ite militias maintained their hold on three Iraqi cities yesterday, as the US military announced five more troop deaths in the fighting that has raged across the country since the weekend. The Iraqi death toll was estimated at 460, more than half of them in the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah.

In a new strategy to pressure international military allies of the United States here, insurgents kidnapped 13 foreigners, including eight South Korean missionaries who were later released unharmed. One group, calling itself the Mujahedeen Brigades, released a videotape to Al Jazeera television showing a rebel holding a knife to the throat of one of three Japanese hostages. The previously unknown group demanded that Japan withdraw its 550 troops from Iraq, which the Japanese government immediately rejected.

US Marines advanced deeper into Fallujah, but did not take control of the insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad despite fierce fighting yesterday. Meanwhile, Shi'ite militias ruled the streets in Kut, Kufa, and Najaf, and battled Spanish troops in Karbala.

Amid increasing evidence that Sunni guerrillas and Shi'ite militias are sharing supplies and training, fighters attacked a US convoy just west of the capital, in Abu Ghraib, and the Mahdi Army continued to engage in nightly battles with US troops in the Shi'ite slum of Sadr City.

Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of all forces in Iraq, said the US-led coalition would retake the cities of Najaf and Kut, would rout guerrillas in Fallujah, and would destroy the Mahdi Army, the militia controlled by cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

"I don't see any shadows of Vietnam here in Iraq," he said.

Sanchez did not rule out sending extra troops to the formerly quiet south to bolster coalition partners such as Ukraine, Spain, Bulgaria and Poland as they confront the Mahdi Army.

"We will do whatever is necessary to defeat Moqtada al-Sadr's forces wherever they are on the battlefield," Sanchez said.

As the fighting raged, new details emerged about the grisly killings of four American contractors in Fallujah last week, suggesting the ambush may not have been a random attack. The New York Times today quoted an executive with the security firm that employed the contractors as saying they were lured into a carefully planned assault by men they believed to be members of Iraq's Civil Defense Corps.

Patrick Toohey of Blackwater USA said an investigation found that the Iraqi men promised the company's convoy safe passage through the restive city. Instead, they blocked off the road and prevented any escape from waiting attackers, Toohey told the Times.

Meanwhile, the US strategy to increase the Iraqi role in security appeared in doubt as Interior Minister Nouri Badran unexpectedly resigned yesterday.

Badran, a Shi'ite, announced he was resigning to accommodate Iraq's US administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, who wants religious balance in the Cabinet and had just appointed a Shi'ite defense minister.

But an aide to a senior Iraqi Governing Council member said yesterday that Badran had been asked to resign because of his "dismal" job in building a new Iraqi police force. Since the weekend, Iraqi police have ceded control of many cities to insurgents, and in many places have switched sides, with some police assisting the Mahdi Army in its fight against occupation forces in Najaf, Karbala, Sadr City, and several Shi'ite neighborhoods in Baghdad.

A delegation of Shi'ite members of the Iraqi Governing Council traveled to Najaf and met with senior clerics in an attempt to broker a peaceful settlement in the fight between the Mahdi Army and coalition forces.

The United States has insisted that Sadr surrender or face arrest on a murder warrant issued in August. But the Shi'ite parties, including the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, have suggested a compromise that would keep Sadr out of jail if he called down his militia.

The Mahdi Army has proven unexpectedly resilient. Sanchez yesterday described it as a poorly disciplined force with minimal military training, and estimated its size at 4,000 to 6,000 fighters.

Since Sunday, however, Mahdi fighters have battled coalition forces doggedly on several fronts.

In Karbala, where millions of Shi'ite pilgrims are expected to converge from today until Sunday for the Arba'in holiday, hundreds of Mahdi fighters attacked the municipal hall in an all-night firefight.

Polish and Bulgarian soldiers killed nine attackers, a spokesman told the Associated Press, before finally driving off the attack just before dawn. The other holy Shi'ite city, Najaf, has been out of the coalition's control since the weekend, but Sanchez emphasized that troops remained on the city's outskirts and were taking care not to inflame tensions at the climax of the 40-day observance that is the most important religious period for the Muslim sect.

"We are very, very cognizant as a coalition of the religious observances that are ongoing right now, and the holy shrine status, and the special status of the city of Najaf," he said. Both Bremer and Sanchez warned that they expected terrorist attacks against the pilgrims marching to Karbala.

Kut remained in the hands of Sadr's men after the Ukrainians withdrew two days ago. "We will retake the city of Al Kut imminently," Sanchez said.

Overnight, a US helicopter struck the Sadr City headquarters of the Mahdi Army, partially destroying some walls that were rebuilt by yesterday afternoon. In the suburb of Shu'ala, a US armored vehicle drove through the outer wall of another Sadr office that has been at the center of fierce fighting since Monday.

"We had given orders for calm because we are peaceful people, and there were negotiations to calm the situation," said Amr al-Husseini, a spokesman for Sadr. "But after they bombarded our headquarters . . . we are ready to resume combat until the last drop of our blood."

The Associated Press reported the death toll from the fighting across Iraq since the weekend at 460 Iraqis, 40 Americans, one Ukrainian, and one Salvadoran.

Truckloads of aid from Shi'ite and Sunni areas of Baghdad flowed to Fallujah, and several Mahdi leaders said they had sent fighters to help the besieged city. An official in the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq said he had received reports of Sunni fighters from Fallujah traveling this week to Sadr City to train Mahdi fighters in ambush and bomb-making techniques.

Handbills distributed in Shi'ite areas of Baghdad, signed by the "Sunni Sons of Iraq," called for the sects to put aside their differences and "make the earth shake beneath the feet of the Americans."

Sanchez yesterday acknowledged the cross-pollination involving the traditional rivals, which could create enormous problems for US-led forces here.

"We believe there is a linkage that may be occurring at the very lowest levels between the Sunni and the Shi'a, and we have to work very hard to ensure that it remains at the tactical level," Sanchez said. "But that's not surprising."

Thanassis Cambanis can be reached at tcambanis@globe.com.