by Hassan Abdulzahrah
NAJAF, Iraq, Aug 5 (AFP) - At least 16 people were killed Thursday and a US helicopter was shot down in the fiercest fighting between multinational troops and Shiite Muslim militiamen in Iraq since a truce was brokered in June.
Clashes persisted throughout the day, and officials reported more than 100 people wounded in the Shiite south and the Baghdad slum stronghold of radical militia leader Moqtada Sadr.
By early evening, US jets began shelling militia positions in the holy city of Najaf and planes could be heard roaring over the capital.
Later, the sound of heavy gunfire boomed out from around the cemetery.
A marine helicopter attached to the 11th Marine Expeditionary unit was forced down in the Najaf region in the morning, a US military spokesman in Baghdad said, adding that the crew was recovered alive.
The incident took place just hours after the fighting first started overnight between Iraqi police and Sadr`s Mehdi Army militia.
Near Najaf, a US soldier was killed and five were wounded when their convoy was attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire. The soldiers had been redeployed to the area from north of Baghdad, the military said.
The death brought to more than 680 the number of US troops killed in action in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion, based on Pentagon statistics.
Najaf`s general hospital, attacked by rockets in the morning -- killing a doctor and seriously wounding four other staff members -- said seven people died in the fighting and another 32 were admitted with injuries.
The US military said "approximately seven" insurgents were killed in Najaf, but it was unclear whether they were among those recorded by medics.
Sadr aides accused US troops of damaging a minaret of the city`s holiest shrine, the mausoleum of Imam Ali, which has remained a Sadr stronghold since his militia waged an uprising against US forces in the spring.
"Once again, the blasphemous Americans have attacked the Imam Ali shrine, so Muslims take up arms to defend your holy places against the occupiers," his fighters shouted over loudspeakers in the afternoon.
Sadr spokesman Sheikh Ahmed al-Shaibani told AFP later that the militia was "ready to confront (US forces) and use whatever means possible" to boot them out of the holy city.
In what could be a sign of a fresh coordinated onslaught against foreign troops, Sadr`s representative in Iraq`s second city of Basra declared holy war against British forces after four militiamen were arrested.
Three militiamen were killed and another three wounded in a brief skirmish with British troops in northern Basra, Sheikh Saad al-Basri said, although the military could confirm only two deaths.
"We will wage jihad (holy war) and war against the foreign troops," Basri vowed earlier. If Iraqi security forces fought longside multinational forces "we will strike them harshly," he threatened.
By dusk, a British spokesman described Basra as "quiet but tense" and said military commanders were negotiating with local leaders in a bid to calm the situation.
In Baghdad`s Sadr City, five people were killed and 58 wounded in fighting between US forces and the Mehdi Army, the health ministry said.
Iraq`s US-backed interim government pledged not to negotiate.
"We are not going to go into any negotiations. We are going to fight these militias. We have enough power and enough strength to stop and kick those people out from the country," Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib said.
When asked whether he had a message for Sadr and his men, Naqib said: "Don`t kill yourself. They are killing themselves."
In the southern city of Nasiriyah, an AFP correspondent said militiamen armed with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and Kalashnikovs were out in force on the streets.
Four people were also wounded when a British position came under mortar fire in the southern city of Amara, medics said.
For its part, the US military branded the situation an "overt violation" of a June truce that had quelled Sadr`s uprising.
Its forces had responded to "large-scale, repeated attacks" on Najaf`s main police station at the request of governor Adnan al-Zorfi, a statement said.
Tensions have run high in the ravaged city -- once a jewel in the crown of a vibrant Iraqi pilgrimage industry -- despite the ceasefire agreement that allowed police forces to resume control of much of the city.
On Saturday, US-led multinational forces arrested Sheikh Mithal al-Hasnawi, Sadr`s representative in Karbala, another Shiite holy city south of Baghdad.
It was the US arrest of one of Sadr`s key deputies that helped to trigger the firebrand cleric`s first standoff with the coalition in the spring.
Further north, in Mahawil, at least nine people were killed and more than 20 wounded when gunmen opened fire and a suicide bomber blew up a minibus outside an Iraqi police station, police and an interior ministry spokesman said.
The attack came just over a week after 70 people were killed in a massive suicide blast outside a police station in Baquba, north of Baghdad.