IRAQ: Tanks and troops attacked a mosque in the city of Kufa yesterday, and said they killed 32 gunmen in an assault on a militia loyal to the cleric Sheikh Moqtada al-Sadr.
US troops fought gunmen around the Sahla mosque in Kufa, the cleric's stronghold just to the east of the holy city of Najaf.
Further north, two US soldiers were killed and five others wounded in an ambush near Falluja.
But in Kerbala, the scene of recent fierce fighting between US forces and Sheikh al-Sadr's gunmen, there was calm, and it appeared the militia had withdrawn from the city centre.
Yesterday's operation was the first US military strike against the militia in Kufa. The military said Iraqi soldiers fighting alongside US troops entered the Sahla mosque and "cleared" it.
Inside they found a machine- gun, two mortar tubes, more than 200 mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenade launchers and rounds.
There were also clashes outside Kufa's technical college and other buildings in the town. However, the main mosque where Sheikh al-Sadr gives his Friday sermons was not attacked.
In the main hospital nearby in Najaf, doctors said they had received 14 dead and 37 injured, apparently after air strikes on militia positions in the city's graveyard.
Despite the heavy fighting in Kufa, the city of Kerbala appeared much quieter. US troops, who have been fighting Sheikh al-Sadr's gunmen there for several days, withdrew from the city over the weekend.
Yesterday there was no sign of gunmen or US troops on the streets. Instead an Iraqi security force, apparently arranged by local Shia clerics, was guarding the Imam Hussein and the Imam Abbas shrines.
The US military denied it had agreed a truce with the militia. "There was no ceasefire; no deal made in Kerbala," said Maj David Gercken, a spokesman for the 1st Armoured Division.
Iraqi officials and politicians in Kerbala and Najaf have been trying for weeks to negotiate an end to the fighting in the holy cities.
At first the US insisted it wanted to "kill or capture" Sheikh al-Sadr, who they suspect of involvement in the murder of a moderate Shia cleric in Najaf last year. After several weeks the US modified its demands, saying it wanted the cleric to face "Iraqi justice".
Last month, after three weeks of heavy fighting, the US military struck a deal to end a similar conflict in the town of Falluja where soldiers faced a Sunni resistance movement. - (Guardian Service)