by Patrick Kamenka
NAJAF, Iraq, Aug 10 (AFP) - US forces urged civilians to evacuate Najaf on Tuesday, the sixth day of clashes with Shiite militiamen that brought a halt to output from Iraq's southern oilfields and sent world prices to record highs.
US troops drove through the centre of the Shiite Muslim pilgrimage city, using loudspeakers to order civilians to evacuate the combat zone immediately and militiamen to leave.
Residents said it was the first time US troops had called for evacuation and feared a massive attack on bastions of Sadr's Mehdi Army in the city's huge cemetery and around the mausoleum of Imam Ali, one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines.
Artillery and tank shells earlier pounded positions in the cemetery.
In a possible prelude to stepped up fighting, a senior US military official said Monday that marines had been given permission by the Najaf governor to enter the shrine to launch an attack.
On Tuesday, the military accused insurgents of kidnapping people and taking them to the cemetery for "torture, execution and burial".
"We will not allow them to continue to desecrate this sacred site, using it as an insurgent base of operations," said Colonel Anthony Haslam, commander of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit.
The US rhetoric came one day after Sadr vowed to defend Najaf "until my last drop of blood," rejecting calls from the prime minister for his men to lay down their arms and leave the city.
In the cleric's Baghdad bastion of Sadr City, witnesses said the US military fired a missile into a residential area, destroying an empty house after a patrol came under attack.
Smoke was seen rising from the impoverished Shiite neighbourhood as US jets roared overhead in a calculated show of force.
Clashes raged for three and a half hours in Sadr City when a US patrol came under repeated attack. The violence was followed by sporadic gun and mortar fire.
As a curfew was imposed from 4:00 pm for a second day running, a Sadr aide called on residents to defend their homes and urged police, security forces and insurgents to join the Mehdi Army in "their fight against the occupation."
"What is going on in Najaf and elsewhere is mass killing by the Americans and the so-called interim government," Qais al-Khazali told reporters.
The health ministry said that during the day nine people had been killed and 92 wounded in Sadr City, and the southern cities of Basra and Diwaniyah. It was not clear if all the casualties were the result of clashes with Sadr's militia.
Following threats against key oil infrastructure from at least two Sadr aides, the state-owned Southern Oil Company announced on Monday that it was halting the pumping of crude "for security reasons."
The southern oilfields around the city of Basra have been Iraq's sole source of crude exports since an attack on a pipeline artery to Turkey halted deliveries from the north last week.
Limited loading continued at Basra but a terminal official said exports were down to an average of 35,000 barrels per hour from 80,000 barrels an hour previously.
The Southern Oil Company refused to say whether pumping had resumed Tuesday. "We are closed today and I can say no more," an official said.
The disruption helped push New York crude prices above 45 dollars a barrel for the first time ever Tuesday, although they later fell back.
In mid-morning New York's benchmark contract, light sweet crude for delivery in September, leapt 20 cents to 45.04 dollars a barrel before settling back to 44.25 dollars.
North of Basra, four insurgents were killed when they attacked a Ukrainian patrol, a multinational force spokesman said.
Elsewhere, an Iraqi National Guard officer was shot dead by gunmen in the Sunni insurgent bastion of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, said police and a doctor.
A Jordanian businessmen was snatched in Baghdad by an unknown group demanding a 250,000-dollar ransom, the kingdom's official Petra news agency said.
However, Lebanese businessman Antoine Antoun, kidnapped 10 days ago, was released, his father told AFP, the second Lebanese to be freed in Iraq in 24 hours.
Kidnappers of a Turkish driver also promised to release him in 24 hours if his company declared publicly that it worked for US troops and would no longer operate in Iraq, in a videotape shown to reporters in the city of Samarra.