by Sammy Ketz
NAJAF, Iraq, Aug 13 (AFP) - Thousands of Iraqis descended on Najaf after Moqtada Sadr Friday urged his Shiite militia to fight on, while US and Iraqi forces closed in on his stronghold and a British journalist was abducted in the south.
Around 2,000 demonstrators marched under the blazing sun from Najaf's twin city of Kufa after Friday prayers, straight through the US and Iraqi lines to the revered Imam Ali mausoleum.
Showered with sweets and water, they embraced members of Sadr's Mehdi Army who have battled US-led forces for nine days in this beseiged pilgrimage city and shouted their support for the cleric and his fighters.
"All of us are soldiers of Moqtada Sadr. With our blood and our soul, we serve you Ali" chanted demonstrators, none of them carrying weapons.
Militiamen refused 5,000 dinar notes being handed out by one man, waving him off. "We are mujahedeen," or holy fighters, they said, as he desperately tried to shove the money in their pockets.
In Baghdad, a Sadr spokesman urged thousands more to march the 160 kilometres (100 miles) to Najaf, as another 1,000 began a similar walk from the holy city of Karbala.
"As we gather here, outside the headquarters of the agent of the occupation who have brought nothing but death and destruction to this country, we order you to march to Najaf on foot," Sayed Hazem al-Araji told worshippers gathered outside the Green Zone, which houses the US embassy and some government offices.
In Karbala, Sadr representative Sheikh Abdulrazaq al-Nadawi told the faithful: "We're going to Najaf to break the seige on our brothers".
Mass protests were also held in Tallafar in the north and Kut al-Hayy in the south to denounce the caretaker government, while in Basra another Sadr aide pressed Iraqi police and national guardsmen to join the Mehdi Army.
In the Sunni Muslim bastion of Fallujah, 1,500 people called for holy war.
Sadr aides said earlier the militia leader had been wounded, although the defence ministry denied that he was hurt and the US military said it was unable to confirm the report.
"The injuries are in his chest, legs and arms. He was hurt in an attack while checking one of the fighting battalions," said spokesman Sheikh Ali Sumeisim in Najaf.
Sadr pressed his Mehdi Army to "continue the jihad (holy war) even if he dies a martyr," said Sheikh Ahmed al-Shaibani at the Imam Ali shrine, a militia stronghold since its spring uprising against the US-led occupation.
Tense and glum fighters roamed the mausoleum area, torn between disbelief and anger that their leader had been hurt.
The defence ministry said there had been a lull in fighting in Najaf since last night, while declining to say whether this was a prelude to a ceasefire.
For its part, the US military said "clearing operations" were continuing to further isolate the militia and restore control of the city.
Yet despite his call to arms, Sadr also said talks to defuse the standoff between his militia and nearly 4,000 US troops and Iraqi security forces would continue, although they have "achieved no solution" to date, Shaibani added.
The government's pointman on security, Muwafaq al-Rubaie, is in Najaf, and the office of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the spiritual leader of Iraq's majority Shiites, also said it was working with all sides for peace.
The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), one of Iraq's main Shiite parties, has also offered to mediate.
Further south, a freelance British journalist was abducted at gunpoint from his hotel in the city of Basra, said London's Foreign Office and hotel employees.
"We can confirm that James Brandon, a British national, has been kidnapped in Basra," a Foreign Office spokeswoman said.
About 20 masked gunmen, some wearing police uniforms, stormed into the Al-Diyafa hotel late Wednesday and dragged out the bleeding man at gunpoint, said a hotel employee.
"We demand the American forces withdraw from Najaf within 24 hours or we will kill this British hostage," a militant said on a video, according to the BBC website, which also reported that Brandon was 23 years old.
He was snatched just hours after a shadowy Shiite group calling itself Abu al-Abbas warned it would kill all those cooperating with British troops in apparent retaliation for the US-led assault on Najaf to the north.
Sadr aides called for Brandon's immediate release.
Overnight, seven Iraqis were killed and 34 wounded when US forces attacked suspected Sadr militia positions in the southern city of Kut, for the second time in 24 hours, a hospital director said.
And in Fallujah, four Iraqis were killed and three wounded during clashes between US forces and insurgents, a doctor said.