Heavy fighting continued for a sixth straight day in Najaf around the central city's vast cemetery between US and Iraqi forces and Iraqi Shiite fighters loyal to cleric Moqtada Sadr.
Artillery and tank shells pounded positions in the labyrinthine graveyard where Sadr's Mehdi Army have dug in, and which was the scene of heavy bombardment Monday, according to AFP.
On Tuesday, US forces called on Iraqi civilians to immediately evacuate the area, arousing fears of a full-scale US-led offensive.
Soldiers aboard Humvee military vehicles toured the Shiite holy city urging the population through loudspeakers to quit the combat zone.
Sadr has vowed to fight to "defend Najaf until my last drop of blood" and rejected calls by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi for his men to lay down their arms and leave the city.
In the cleric's Baghdad bastion of Sadr City, clashes raged for three and a half hours early Tuesday when a US patrol came under repeated attack as it drove through the center of the sprawling slum.
Iraqi fighters attacked the "large number" of troops with rocket-propelled grenade, small arms fire and makeshift bombs from 4:30 am (0030 GMT) to 8:00 am, said a US military spokesman.
He said there had been Iraqi casualties, but no injuries to US soldiers or damage to any equipment.
Sporadic gunfire and mortar rounds continued to explode in Sadr City later in the morning. Shops remained boarded up and the main road closed to traffic as armed fighters roamed the streets.
A series of strong explosions came from the direction of the restive suburb at around 7:00 am before US helicopters flew over the northeast area.
A curfew had officially been imposed Monday until 8:00 am Tuesday in the wake of fierce fighting between Sadr followers and US forces that has left many dead.
Northwest of Kut, three civilians were wounded, including one seriously, when a roadside bomb exploded as a Ukranian convoy passed through Numaniyah, said police local chief Colonel Ali Jabbar Kadhim.
Elsewhere, several mortar shells hit the headquarters of
the British forces in Shat al-Arab hotel in the northern sector of the southern city of Basra during the early hours of Tuesday, according to eyewitnesses.
They said the shells were fired from the center of Basra and crashed into the British headquarters. (Albawaba.com)
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
