By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer KARBALA, Iraq - Three American soldiers were killed and seven were wounded in a midnight clash at a Shiite Muslim cleric's headquarters in this shrine city, the U.S. military said Friday. Witnesses said at least eight Iraqis also died in the fighting.
The U.S. troops, who were not identified pending notification of relatives,
were members of the 101st Airborne Division, Maj. Mike Escudie of U.S. Central
Command in Tampa, Fla. said in a statement.
The statement also said two Iraqi security forces personnel were killed and
five wounded in the attack near Imam Abbas Mosque in Karbala, 50 miles south of
Baghdad.
"The engagement involved an exchange of small-arms fire and rocket-propelled
grenades as Iraqi authorities and coalition military police were investigating
reports of armed men congregating on a road near the mosque after curfew," the
statement said.
Gunfire broke out again Friday morning in the same area in this restive city,
where Thursday night's encounter may have signaled a new U.S. determination to
disarm religious-based militias and enforce curfews.
An armored personnel carrier of the U.S.-led coalition appeared to be firing
Friday morning as screaming men, women and children fled for cover. Shiite
gunmen defiantly shouted, "Allahu Akbar!" — "God is great!" The gunfire soon
ended, but young Shiites still manned rooftop and street positions with assault
rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
Malik Kazim, a gunman who said he was involved in the fighting, said it
involved an apparent joint American-Polish patrol of armored vehicles and
Humvees that passed by the offices of a local senior Shiite Muslim cleric,
Mahmoud al-Hassani, which were guarded by at least 20 gunmen.
The international patrol ordered the gunmen inside the offices to comply with
a 9 p.m. curfew, which has been in effect in Karbala since Tuesday, Kazim said.
Iraqi policemen who were at the scene said one fellow officer was killed in
the firefight, and Kazim said seven of his comrades were killed.
Kazim said intense gunfire lasted about a half-hour. Dozens of bullet holes,
some large-caliber, could be seen in walls in the area Friday morning.
Al-Hassani is one of Karbala's lesser-known ayatollahs — the highest clerical
rank in Shiism. Rivalries among Shiite factions have led to sporadic violence in
recent weeks, as the sect, suppressed under deposed President Saddam Hussein (news
- web
sites), flexes its new political muscle as a majority in Iraq (news
- web sites).
Thursday night's clash also appeared to reflect a determination by the
U.S.-led coalition to minimize any challenge to its authority from armed
religious militants.
Polish forces lead an international brigade responsible for postwar security
in the Karbala area, 50 miles south of Baghdad, commanding some 9,500
peacekeepers from 21 nations, including 2,400 Poles. The 31,000-square-mile area
was handed over by American forces last month.
Separately, American soldiers in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk drove off
attackers late Thursday in a hail of bullets after assailants fired a
rocket-propelled grenade at a U.S. compound in an apparent assassination attempt
on an Iraqi politician working with the coalition, U.S. and Iraqi officials said
Friday.
The assailants apparently escaped but their bullet-riddled car crashed into a
wall where it exploded, U.S. 2nd Lt. Casey Thoreen of the 173rd Airborne Brigade
said. No Americans were killed or injured.
U.S. and Iraqi officials said the attack came after two rocket-propelled
grenades were fired at a local office of the Iraqi National Accord, a former
opposition movement headed by Iyad Allawi, current president of the Iraqi
Governing Council.
The officials believed the attackers were targeting Mohammed Khorshid, an INA
official who was visiting from Baghdad.
A bomb blast also hit a police station in Kirkuk, wounding a policeman,
Iran's official news agency IRNA reported. Station chief Lt. Col. Anwar Qader
Ahmad said the attackers were Saddam loyalists.
The violence came after an explosion damaged part of the main pipeline
running from Iraq's northern oil fields earlier Thursday, forcing a reduction in
the amount of oil available for export.
In Irbil, 200 miles north of Baghdad, police also shot and killed the driver
of a car packed with 220 pounds of explosives as he approached the police
ministry office, the U.S. military said.
It was unclear whether the pipeline explosion near the city of Hadeetha, 125
miles northwest of Baghdad, was caused by saboteurs, a senior Oil Ministry
official said on condition of anonymity.
He said the explosion ripped open part of the main pipeline linking the
northern oil fields to the al-Doura oil refinery and the Mussayab power plant.
The oil in the pipeline was earmarked for domestic use.
To maintain domestic supplies, the official said exports from the southern
oil fields will be reduced by 80,000 barrels a day to make up for the shortage
from the northern oil fields.
There have been many attacks on pipelines in the region, complicating the
American rebuilding effort in Iraq, which depends on oil revenue.
Meanwhile, the U.N. Security Council adopted a U.S.-backed resolution aimed
at attracting more troops and money for his country and speeding up its
independence.
The deaths in Karbala mean a total of 197 U.S. soldiers have been killed by
bombings, ambushes and other hostile incidents since President Bush (news
- web
sites) declared an end to major combat operations May 1.
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