US fights growing rebellion in Iraq

BAGHDAD -- Fierce battles between US-led forces and militants loyal to a radical cleric spread yesterday, causing a mounting casualty toll and confronting Iraq's new US-backed interim government with its most serious test yet.

Computer specialist arrested in Britain said to have Al Qaeda ties. A2.

Clashes over the last two days have left scores of people dead, 20 of them in Baghdad alone. US military officials said that as many as 300 militants were killed in the Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Najaf, where anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is based. Sadr's deputies disputed that figure, estimating that about three dozen members of his Mahdi militia had died.

An Army soldier and two Marines died in the hostilities Thursday. No US deaths were reported yesterday. An additional 28 troops have been wounded, the military said.

From Najaf, the conflict spread south to the cities of Amarah, Nasiriyah, and Basra and north to Baghdad, where more confrontations erupted in the Sadr City slum and gunfire ricocheted through the Shulla neighborhood, another Shi'ite stronghold. US troops hastily clamped a dusk-to-dawn curfew on Sadr City last night.

Further complicating the prospects of calming Shi'ite-dominated southern Iraq, the country's senior cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, left Najaf and arrived in London yesterday for treatment of an unspecified heart condition. Sistani, 73, a voice of moderation among Iraq's Shi'ite majority, wields great influence.

''We are waiting for an assessment," Sistani's representative in London, Jaffar Bassam, said after the cleric arrived with a team of doctors.

Sistani was critical of the US-led occupation and has pushed for early, direct elections. But his relatively cautious statements and condemnation of violence have contrasted sharply with Sadr's confrontational tactics.

In Najaf, where a rain of bullets, rockets, shells, and bombs had residents cowering in their homes, Sadr issued a sermon yesterday denouncing the United States as ''the greatest of Satans" and rallying his forces. ''The Iraqi president says that America is our friend. I tell you, America is our enemy," the Al Arabiya satellite television channel quoted him as saying.

At the same time, his spokesman in Baghdad insisted that Sadr was ready to reinstate a truce that was shattered by the violence that began Thursday.

''There is no need to use force in solving this problem. We want to solve it peacefully," Sheik Mahmoud Saudany told reporters. But, he warned, ''We will not stand idle if we are subjected to an attack."

Each side blames the other for provoking the renewed combat in Najaf, the heaviest since US forces and the Al Mahdi militia negotiated a cease-fire in May. An uneasy peace had prevailed since then, as American troops withdrew from parts of the city and agreed not to operate around the Imam Ali Mosque and another mosque in the nearby city of Kufa.

In the latest surge of hostilities, Army General George W. Casey, the top American military commander in Iraq, said Marines had tightened their ring around the two houses of worship and concentrated firepower on a sprawling, treeless cemetery beside the Imam Ali Mosque, where militants had taken up positions. US fighter jets dropped satellite-guided bombs on the graveyard Thursday.

Buildings were aflame and shops shuttered in Najaf. Gunfire, the drone of helicopter gunships and the explosions of bombs and shells thundered in the air. A boy whose home near the mosque had been hit lay wounded in the street. He died shortly after being brought to a hospital by passersby. By early yesterday evening, an official at the Al Hakim hospital counted 13 dead and 48 injured.

The government of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi called the Iraqi-US operation a ''complete success," saying that ''1,200 criminals" had surrendered. But the US military said it expected the fighting to continue through the weekend.

US and Iraqi officials said that outsiders were among the insurgents captured in Najaf, including a large number of convicts who were released by Saddam Hussein shortly before the US-led invasion to oust him began.

Some Iraqi officials have said that Iranians also have been involved in the fighting.

American commanders have expressed concern that entry points into Najaf have not been sufficiently sealed off, allowing Sadr followers from Amarah, Fallujah, and other cities to stream in.

Saudany, Sadr's spokesman in Baghdad, denied that foreigners were fighting. ''Only Iraqis are defending their cities," he said.

The fledgling Iraqi government, which took power June 28, said it would not deal with armed groups such as Sadr's and promised to crush the militants.

''This event came at a time to challenge the new government, which has a clear security plan and agenda to put an end to lawlessness and terrorism," Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told the BBC. ''This new challenge is very unfortunate, but we are confident and capable to contain it."

He acknowledged that Iraqi security forces had been unable to control the violence on their own, continuing to rely on military aid from the United States and other nations.

About 200 miles southeast of Najaf, in Basra, Sadr loyalists battled British troops, firing mortar shells and rockets at a hotel housing British soldiers.

Gunfights broke out near Sadr's office in the city but subsided quickly. But the local Mahdi leader vowed not to let up.

''We warn the British troops not to be out on the streets of Basra," said Sheik Assad Basri. ''If they are, their bases all over the city will be under attack."

In Nasiriyah, a southern town that had been relatively quiet since the end of major combat last year, six people were killed and 13 injured in fighting between militants and Italian and Iraqi government forces holed up in the police station.

In Amarah, Sadr's militia overran several police stations, US officials said. British troops backed by tanks were sent in to retake the main facility.

Some of the fiercest fighting occurred in Baghdad districts packed with the disaffected Shi'ite youths who form the core of Sadr's support.

The Ministry of Health reported that 20 people had been killed in the fighting in Sadr City from early Thursday through yesterday afternoon. An additional 114 were wounded.