Shiite Cleric’s Militia Continues to Clash With U.S. in Najaf

NAJAF, Iraq — Masked gunmen wearing the black uniforms of the Al Mahdi militia loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada Sadr took up positions on the roof of a hotel popular with journalists in this holy city Saturday, even as Sadr aides appeared to suggest that they were willing to consider a peaceful solution to a stalemate with U.S.-led forces.

Climbing onto the roof from a neighboring building, the fighters prepared mortar rounds and targeted coalition troops with small-arms fire, in effect making the hotel a target for the U.S.-led troops.

As gun- and mortar fire sounded across the city and bullets ricocheted in the alley near the hotel, the streets emptied and the hotel guests -- primarily Arab journalists -- fled.

The fighting was worst near the city’s central police headquarters and the governor’s office.

At least 10 people were injured in the Saturday clashes, which erupted again about midnight, according to a report from Associated Press.

Even as the fighting seemed to intensify during the day, a spokesman for Sadr said the militia would end its armed presence in Najaf and Karbala as soon as U.S. troops withdrew from the holy cities.

“We are prepared to end our armed presence the moment the occupation forces leave the holy cities and give guarantees of that,” spokesman Qais Khazali said to reporters.

“There are no guarantees up to now that the occupying forces will not go back to the holy shrines,” Khazali said, although it is Sadr’s fighters and not U.S. troops who have installed themselves in the shrines.

Karbala was quiet Saturday after a week of heavy fighting involving U.S.-led coalition troops, Sadr’s militia and other armed Shiite groups that also would like to see Sadr’s men leave.

A U.S. patrol into the center of the city late Saturday found no sign of Sadr’s militia, and residents said the fighters had fled the area the night before, the Associated Press said.

Sadr’s offer to withdraw if the U.S. leaves first is similar to others he has made before and then backed away from. The U.S. military views such talk as posturing. However, American officials are watching closely to see whether continued military pressure on Sadr will bring him to the negotiating table.

Dan Senor, spokesman for the U.S.-led occupation administration, said there had been no contact with Sadr, whom the authorities want in connection with the slaying of a rival Shiite Muslim cleric last year. “There is not any ... truce to my knowledge,” Senor said.

Sadr supporters who are still trickling in to Najaf continued to pledge their allegiance. Badr Hilfi, 31, a fervent Al Mahdi volunteer, said he had come from Basra, leaving behind his wife and three children. Like many of the cleric’s followers, he sees himself as part of a long tradition of defending the Sadr family.

Sadr’s family has a reputation of opposition to secular government; both his father and uncle are believed to have been killed by operatives of then-President Saddam Hussein.

“I want to defend the Sayyid [Muqtada Sadr] who is forsaken by [them], just like his father whom they have criticized bitterly. Once they claimed that he was Saddam’s agent and once the Americans’ ... but when he was killed everybody talked about him in the most positive terms,” Hilfi said.

As black-clad militia members walked the streets with guns slung over their shoulders and rockets in their hands, the U.S.-led coalition troops again entered the city’s vast holy cemetery, which has become a redoubt for the Al Mahdi fighters, who are believed to use tunnels under the graves and mausoleums to store their weapons.

It was unclear late Saturday how aggressively the U.S.-led troops had pursued the fighters in the cemetery or whether the soldiers had discovered substantial weapons caches. But many Najafis believe that Sadr’s militia is using as many of the underground passageways as it can find to store its weapons.

The network of tunnels under the cemetery is legendary in Najaf and was considered dangerous enough by Hussein that he attempted to seal them. But it is widely believed that there are so many that a number eluded his efforts. The original use for the cemetery passageways is not clear, but similar tunnels and even underground rooms exist in many houses in central Najaf.

There they are favored for their cooler temperature during the hot summer weather. Some families have furnished them and set up ventilation systems.

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Times staff writer Rubin reported from Baghdad and special correspondent Salman from Najaf.