Fierce Fighting Erupts Between Coalition Troops, Shiite Militia In Iraq

NAJAF, Iraq, Aug 6 (AFP) - Coalition troops backed up by US airpower battled Shiite Muslim followers of a radical Iraqi cleric in the fiercest fighting since a truce was brokered in June.
At least 17 people were killed Thursday and a US helicopter was shot down. Officials reported more than 100 people wounded in the Shiite south and the Baghdad slum stronghold of radical militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr.
By early Friday, US jets were still intermittently pounding militia positions in the cemetery in Najaf, but ground fighting had ceased in the Shiite holy city. Earlier, planes were heard roaring over the capital.
A helicopter attached to the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit was forced down in the Najaf region, but the crew was recovered alive, a US military spokesman in Baghdad said.
The incident took place just hours after the fighting began 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 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 said nine people died in the fighting and another 34 were admitted with injuries. The hospital itself was attacked by rockets early Thursday, killing a doctor and seriously wounding four other staff members.
The US military said 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 last 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 said 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-largest city, Basra, declared a holy war on 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. If Iraqi security forces fight alongside multinational forces "we will strike them harshly."
A British spokesman described Basra late Thursday 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 Sadr`s 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.
In Nasiriyah, an AFP correspondent saw militiamen armed with rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikovs clashing with Italian troops in the residential al-Shamia district in the southern city. There were no reported casualties.
But four people were 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.
Tensions have run high in Najaf -- a ravaged city that was 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.
It was the arrest of one of Sadr`s key deputies that helped to trigger the firebrand cleric`s first standoff with the coalition last Spring. The latest clashes followed the arrest Saturday by US-led multinational forces of Sheikh Mithal al-Hasnawi, Sadr`s representative in Karbala, another Shiite holy city south of Baghdad.
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.
In Baghdad, officials said interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi will give details Saturday of the much-delayed amnesty law aimed at bringing insurgents back into the fold. The measure excludes those guilty of murder.
And at the US army base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, witnesses in the hearing of a soldier accused of mistreating Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison implicated military intelligence officers in acts of alleged abuse.