by Sam Dagher
BAGHDAD, Aug 7 (AFP) - Iraq`s prime minister invited renegade Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr to run in the country`s first free elections in decades, as sporadic clashes rumbled on between US forces and his militiamen Saturday.
Extending an olive branch after US marines and Iraqi security forces pounded Sadr`s Mehdi Army for two days in the holy city of Najaf and Baghdad, Iyad Allawi invited the fiery cleric to stand for election.
The prime minister`s US-backed interim government is due to disband when Iraq holds polls scheduled for January 2005.
"I invite Moqtada Sadr to participate in elections next year," Allawi told reporters. The prime minister said he had received "positive signals" about Sadr running but did not elaborate.
US planes flew over Najaf throughout the day. Gunfire and mortar and rocket blasts grew less frequent by early afternoon, while an ultimatum for Sadr`s militia to leave the area expired at 6:00 pm (1400 GMT).
Describing Najaf as "quite pitiful", Allawi dismissed most of Sadr`s militiamen as Saddam Hussein faithful and convicts released from jail by the deposed president ahead of last year`s US-led invasion.
Pummelled in Sadr`s spring uprising against foreign troops, hundreds of terrified Najafis have fled their homes to escape the latest fighting.
The US military has said it has killed 300 insurgents in the city alone during the recent fighting -- although Sadr aides insist no more than nine militiamen have died.
Combined tolls from medics put the number of dead at 76 and more than 300 wounded in fighting which spread to Baghdad and other southern Shiite cities.
Five US marines have been killed and 12 wounded in Najaf province in the clashes. Another US soldier was killed in an ambush in western Baghdad.
Ambulances have been barred from the city centre where the worst fighting has been concentrated.
Doctors in Najaf, running short of blood and medical supplies, appealed for ambulances not to be attacked by either side as hostilities spluttered on.
Allawi said 1,200 militiamen have been captured, but Najaf police said they had no orders to arrest Sadr himself.
Echoing pledges from government officials in Baghdad, police General Ghaleb el-Jazairi ruled out any possibility of truce talks, two months after a June ceasefire quelled Sadr`s first uprising.
"We have received reinforcements and we have received new weapons. We will finish with them, control the city and no longer tolerate militias in Najaf."
In Baghdad, seven people were killed and nearly 30 wounded in the Shiite slum of Sadr City as US patrols and Iraqi National Guard positions came under attack from Sadr`s Mehdi Army, medics said.
US tanks smashed through makeshift barriers of bricks and burning tyres into Sadr City, coming under rocket-propelled grenade and mortar fire from Mehdi Army fighters, an AFP photographer said.
Frightened residents huddled in alleyways as they watched the clashes.
Allawi, recently returned from a Middle East tour aimed at drumming up support for his efforts to restore security in Iraq, also said an amnesty for low-level insurgent supporters had been signed into law.
The law, due to have been announced in July, would "allow citizens to rejoin civil society... instead of wasting their lives pointlessly towards a lost cause," the prime minister said.
His government has also ordered pan-Arab television channel Al-Jazeera to close its offices in Baghdad for a month on grounds of "inciting hatred and problems and racial tensions".
Al-Jazeera has frequently broadcast videotapes put together by kidnappers of foreign hostages snatched in Iraq.
But one such tape which allegedly showed a US hostage being executed by a militant group, excerpts of which were broadcast by the channel`s rival Al-Arabiya, turned out to be a hoax.
Benjamin Vanderford told the Associated Press he had staged his own death at a friend`s home months ago in "a stunt" to attract attention and make a statement about how easily such videos can be faked.
A Turkish truck driver has also been snatched by Islamic militants who have demanded that his company quit Iraq, his kidnappers told journalists in the flashpoint city of Samarra.
In footage broadcast on Turkey`s NTV channel, the militants said he would be executed within 48 hours unless his employer complies with their demand.