Najaf Fighting Flares Up As Kidnapped U.S. Journalist Released

NAJAF, Iraq, Aug 23 (AFP) - As fighting flared up here between US troops and militiamen loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, a US journalist kidnapped since August 13 was released in good health.
Journalist Micah Garen was in the custody of government officials in Iraq`s southern city of Nasiriyah Sunday, local official Adwan al-Shurafei told AFP.
Garen, 36, was released with intervention from Sadr official, who opened talks with the kidnappers four days ago, Surafei said.
Aws al-Khafaji, head of Sadr`s office in Nasiriyah, earlier told Al-Jazeera television that Sadr had intervened and called for Garen`s release as "a message of peace" and because hostage-taking was against Islam.
"I am very thankful to al-Sadr, the office of al-Sadr for what they did for me and I am very happy," Garen told the Arabic satellite channel through a translator.
Meanwhile, Paris said it was doing everything possible to locate two French journalists -- the correspondents of Radio France Internationale (RFI) and the daily newspaper Le Figaro, last seen on Friday -- the latest of dozens of foreigners to have gone missing in Iraq since April.
In Najaf, Mehdi Army fighters loyal to Sadr clashed regularly with US forces parked in tanks around 300 metres (yards) away from the Imam Ali shrine, an AFP correspondent said.
Guns and mortar rounds were heard being fired from inside the mosque compound before a brief US aerial bombardment over the Old City around midnight Sunday (2000 GMT).
"In clashes this evening around the mausoleum, the Americans used helicopters and tanks. The western wall of the compound was damaged by tank fire and several people inside were killed and injured," said Sadr spokesman Sheikh Ahmed al-Shaibani.
US troops backing Iraqi forces in Najaf had scaled back their deployment Saturday, but Sunday`s clashes were more intense than the sporadic firing the previous day.
Two days after an agreement was announced for Sadr`s fighters to hand over the keys to the shrine -- occupied by the Mehdi Army since an April uprising -- to representatives of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq`s top Shiite religious authority, the deal appeared to be stalled.
The Mehdi Army has occupied the site, one of the holiest sites in the Shiite world, since their April uprising.
"The matter is suspended as of now, because we are awaiting the response from Sistani about forming the committee" tasked with carrying out a full inventory of the shrine`s priceless works of art and alms, Sadr`s junior spokesman Sheikh Ahmed al-Shaibani told AFP in Najaf.
Sistani, 73, is currently in Britain recovering after medical treatment.
Sistani has been reluctant to take back the shrine without ensuring that nothing is missing, and the Mehdi Army is unwilling to surrender control amid any suggestion of impropriety.
Fighting over the past days has increased the toll among US troops.
The US military in Baghdad announced that five US troops were killed and another wounded in the last 24 hours in Iraq in a series of attacks and an accident.
According to the most recent statistics on the Pentagon website, 708 US soldiers have been killed in action since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
Separately an Indonesian and two Iraqis were killed and a Philippine wounded when their convoy was ambushed in the northern city of Mosul, police said.
The two-week crisis in Najaf has provided the biggest challenge to Prime Minister Iyad Allawi since his caretaker government received full powers with the formal winding up of the US-led occupation on June 28.
While containing the Shiite uprising would bolster his fledgling government, a prolonged stand-off with Sadr risks undermining his authority, already sapped by a persistent insurgency in Sunni areas north and west of the capital.
The fighting has helped push world oil prices to historic highs -- but crude exports from southern Iraq returned to their normal level overnight, the state-owned firm which operates the fields said.
The South Oil Company announced that southern oil exports had returned to their normal level of 85,000 barrels an hour as of late Saturday.
For 13 days, daily exports were down to between 36,000 and 42,000 barrels due to Mehdi Army threats to blow up oil pipelines feeding the two Gulf terminals.
In London, representatives of Iraq`s interim government visited Sistani at his sickbed Sunday to express its respects and "deep appreciation for his on-going role for peace and security in Iraq," the group said in a statement.
Sistani left a London hospital on Thursday after treatment for a heart condition. It is not clear how long he would remain in Britain.
His sudden departure from his Najaf base coincided with a flare-up of fighting between Sadr militiamen and US-led forces.
Faced with the relentless violence, Polish Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski said during a visit to Poland`s 2,500-strong contingent in Iraq that his government wanted to pull its troops out of Iraq as soon as possible, the PAP news agency reported.
Meanwhile an Islamic extremist group vowed in a website threat to carry out attacks inside El Salvador if the Central American state fails to pull out troops from Iraq.
"We swear by God ... that you will regret dearly for your presence in Iraq," vowed the group, calling itself the Mohamed Atta-Al-Qaeda Brigades.
On August 16, the extremist group - named for a hijacker involved in the September 11 terror attacks in the United States - gave El Salvador 20 days to pull out its military contingent from Iraq.
If the deadline is not met then "you (the Salvadoran government), and you alone, bear the responsibility for the blood that will be spilled," the group said.
El Salvador is the only Latin American country with troops in the US-led military coalition in Iraq. The Dominican Republic, Honduras and Nicaragua withdrew their forces earlier this year, following Spain`s lead.
A separate Islamic militant group, calling itself the Army of Ansar al-Sunna, published on a website the alleged pictures of twelve Nepalese citizens whom it said it had abducted in Iraq for cooperating with US forces.
"We are showing (the pictures) as an example for whoever combats Islam and the Muslims, and supports and assists the Crusader occupation forces in Iraq," said the group.