IRAQ: Sheikh Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shia cleric yesterday defied demands from Iraq's interim government that his militia pull out of Najaf. In addition, threats from his fighters forced a halt to oil output in the south.
Despite a brief lull to evacuate casualties, there was no sign that fighting would ease after days of fierce clashes with US marines, who claim to have killed 360 of his fighters.
A British soldier was killed during clashes in the southern city of Basra, the Ministry of Defence in London said.
Sheikh Moqtada al-Sadr's men hit the oil industry for the first time, raising fears about a sector already plagued by sabotage and helping to push world oil prices to record highs.The official said Sheikh al-Sadr's militiamen had threatened to sabotage production by the state Southern Oil Company. He said storage at the Gulf Basra terminal was sufficient to keep exports running for about two days.
Battles in several cities tested the wills of the radical sheikh and the interim government of Prime Minister Mr Iyad Allawi, which has vowed to impose stability and lead an economic recovery which would depend heavily on oil exports.
Iraq's political establishment was rocked on another front when a judge issued arrest warrants against former Pentagon darling Mr Ahmad Chalabi and his nephew Mr Salem Chalabi, the US-appointed lawyer supervising Saddam Hussein's trial.
The fresh Shia uprising poses the most serious test for Mr Allawi since he took over from US-led occupiers on June 28th.
Heavily armed marines, backed by aircraft, tightened their noose around Najaf in heavy battles yesterday, but a senior US military official denied coalition forces were hunting the young cleric.
Sheikh al-Sadr thundered defiance during a news conference at Najaf's holiest shrine, the Imam Ali mosque. "The Mahdi army and I will keep resisting. I will stay in holy Najaf and will never leave," he said. "I will stay here until my last drop of blood."
The US military official said marines had killed at least 360 loyalists from Sheikh al-Sadr's Mahdi army militia since the uprising in Najaf erupted on Thursday. Sheikh al-Sadr's men contest that figure.
Fighting in other cities has killed dozens in recent days. In the southern city of Basra, British troops fought street battles with Mahdi militiamen, who set fire to two British military Land Rovers. Five British soldiers were wounded.Fighting also spread to the southern city of Diwaniya, where witnesses said Sheikh al-Sadr's fighters surrounded the governorate and police station, and fighting inflicted several casualties. Fresh clashes also broke out in Baghdad's Sadr City. The government imposed an overnight curfew, but many people ignored it.
Explosions and gunfire echoed from inside the heart of Najaf. Mr Allawi visited the shell-scarred city on Sunday and demanded Sheikh al-Sadr's militia back down. The cleric, a hero to Iraq's downtrodden Shia youth, rejected the order to leave. While Najaf saw the worst clashes a Health Ministry official said 16 people were killed in the past 24 hours elsewhere.
A suicide car bomb exploded outside the house of an official in the village of Balad Ruz north of Baghdad yesterday, killing seven police, police and the US military said. The deputy governor for Diala province was among 17 wounded. At least four Iraqis were killed when a bus was caught in a blast west of Baghdad, witnesses said. And in the capital insurgents fired mortar rounds at the oil ministry and other government compounds.
While at least 20 foreigners remain in the hands of kidnappers, a Syrian man seized last month has been freed, the family of his Lebanese employer, who is also missing, said yesterday.
The family said Mr Issa al-Sheik Awad had told them his employer, Mr Antoine Antoun, would also be freed soon.