by Patrick Kamenka
NAJAF, Iraq, Aug 11 (AFP) - A week of fighting pitting US-led forces and Iraqi police against militiamen loyal to Shiite firebrand Moqtada Sadr has been hardest on civilians in the holy city of Najaf.
"How can a family stay when there is no more water, no more electricity, no more supplies, and even the wounded are not evacuated?" asked a shopowner named Mahmoud, his face lined with exhaustion.
"I live 100 meters (yards) from the cemetery and I am one of the few civilians still in the Al-Alama neighborhood where there is no one left but fighters of the Mehdi Army, and which is the scene of fighting every day," he said.
"The fighting is bad on both sides. No one can win in this affair, but for now it`s the civilians who are especially suffering, so it would be better if they went and fought outside of the cities," he said as people around him nodded their agreement.
"The Americans are wrong to attack residential districts, especially since the fighters of Moqtada Sadr are determined to die as martyrs," said Mahmoud, who was wearing a traditional dishdasha, or caftan.
He had come out of the district to see his family on the outskirts of Najaf, Shiite Islam`s holiest city, for a brief respite.
Mahmoud has a shop selling household appliances in a normally busy market in the middle of the city, which lies in ruins following clashes between the militiamen and US troops.
He said he evacuated his family soon after the clashes erupted a week ago.
"All around my house it`s just destruction and fighting. Besides, most of my friends have abandoned everything and left with their wives and children," said Mahmoud, who is in his early 50s.
"Even in the rest of the city, there is no more market, no more shopkeepers bringing goods. People are living on their reserves, and meanwhile food prices have doubled.
"Those who can should drive to the market in Kufa, but they risk getting shot at on their way there or back," he said.
Commenting on the fact that moderate Shiite leader Ali Sistani has gone to London for medical treatment, Mahmoud said the grand ayatollah "did not want to publicly oppose" Moqtada Sadr, who comes from a large family of Shiite clerics and whose father Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr was killed in February 1999 by then president Saddam Hussein.
After the visit, Mahmoud climbed into his beat-up car at dusk and headed back to the family home, swearing it was "the last time," after which he would move out to be with his family.
Among the combatants, the mood was defiant.
"Moqtada Sadr, your enemies fear you," chanted a young militiaman, aged about 10, with a missile tube in one hand, perched on the back of a muddy pick-up truck in front of Imam Ali`s shrine in the centre of Najaf.
Several of his colleagues, most of them youths, lifted their Kalashnikov assault rifles in the air to join in the chant.
Another fighter calmly cycled by with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, as the thunder of US helicopter and tank fire came from the cemetery which has become a Medhi Army stronghold.
On Rassoul Street leading to the shrine, only a handful of civilians dared to venture out and the shops were almost all shuttered. But a street vendor was doling out cups of tea to thirsty passers-by.
Access to the shrine was entirely in the hands of the Medhi Army, whose militiamen screened any strangers.
Posters to the glory of Moqtada Sadr were splattered over the walls, while burning tyres produced streaks of black smoke in what one militiaman said was a ploy to thwart American helicopters and warplanes.
Najaf Governor Adnan al-Zorfi said on Wednesday that the US army would not enter the old city of Najaf around the Imam Ali shrine. But the US military said later it was preparing a major offensive alongside Iraqi security forces.
"Marines, US army soldiers and Iraqi national guardsmen continue joint training exercises in preparation for major assaults against enemy forces in the city of Najaf," the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit said.