US troops pounded Shia militia in the holy city of Kerbala today in the wake of futher lurid photographs of Iraqi prisoners being abused by occupation forces.
The continued resistance to US attempts to stabilise Iraq and the shocking actions of its personnel in Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad are adding US President George W Bush problems as he prepares to lay out a plan to hand over sovereignty to what Washington hopes will be a pro-American Iraqi government.
The military released nearly 500 more detainees from Abu Ghraib but the new photographs in the Washington Post, including those of a prisoner cowering before a dog and an US soldier watching a tottering naked man covered in what looked like excrement, will harden resentment in Iraq and disgust in the United States and internationally.
The newspaper also said a new video clip to emerge from evidence of abuse at Abu Ghraib showed five hooded and naked detainees standing against a wall, each masturbating, with two other hooded detainees crouched at their feet.
US soldiers also turned the cameras on themselves, filming scenes of consensual sex.
The US military is also investigating accounts that an air strike on a remote desert settlement on Wednesday killed 45 guests at a wedding. The US military believes many of the guests may have been Iraqi fighters.
In the holy city of Kerbala, heavy shelling of Mehdi Army fighters loyal to Iraq's most high-profile militant, Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, continued. Sadr appeared today in the nearby holy city of Najaf to deliver a defiant sermon outside the town.
"Don't let my death end your resistance. Continue and God will give you victory," he told worshippers at Kufa mosque, as his fighters skirmished with American soldiers nearby.
Iraqi political leaders have become more critical of US attempts to stamp out Sadr's insurgency. Notable among these is Mr Ahmad Chalabi, once the Pentagon's tip to succeed Saddam Hussein. His fall from Washington's favour was in evedidence yesterday when Iraqi police and US troops raided his home and offices yesterday.
Agencies