Shiite Rebels Report New Fighting in Southern Iraq : Mideast: Dissidents report gunships over marshlands as allies prepare a ‘no-fly’ protective zone.

Shiite Muslim rebels Wednesday reported fighting with government troops in southern Iraq as the Gulf War allies prepared to establish a protective zone in the area.

The Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite dissident group based in Iran, said Iraq sent helicopter gunships over the marshlands near Amarah. The group did not report any use of weapons by the gunships, but it did mention more fighting between Shiite forces and government troops.

In a telefax from its office in Tehran, the group said the rebels were fighting back to stop “genocide attempts by the regime” against the people of the south.

It did not say when the fighting took place, but usually its reports are delayed by at least 24 hours because of difficult communications with the remote marshes.

Britain and France announced Tuesday that the U.S.-led Gulf War coalition will create a “no-fly” zone over southern Iraq to protect the besieged Shiites. They said they will shoot down any Iraqi aircraft that violates the zone.

On Wednesday, a Bush Administration official said there is “no disagreement or division whatsoever” over whether to establish the no-fly zone. But “we’ve got a lot of details we still need to work out,” he said.

For example, the three countries had not yet decided precisely what roles the air forces of each nation would play in monitoring and enforcing the edict. At the same time, the official said, the nations had not agreed whether Iraqi helicopters as well as fixed-wing aircraft would be barred from the zone or whether the allied action would include a prohibition on Iraqi military activity on the ground in the region. The official said it would be “some days before arrangements are made final.”

In Baghdad, the regime made no direct response to what one Iraqi journalist dubbed the West’s “fly-and-die” plans, but the official press stressed that President Saddam Hussein was unperturbed.

Writing in the official daily Al Jumhuriyah, Hussein’s press officer portrayed President Bush as a lunatic obsessed by the Iraqi president and John Major as Britain’s “silliest prime minister” ever.

Meanwhile, a leading Iraqi opposition group welcomed the allies’ warning to Iraq not to use warplanes against the Shiites.

The Iraqi National Congress said it supports all attempts to stop oppression by Hussein.

“The biggest threat to Iraq’s unity and territorial integrity is the continued existence of Saddam’s regime,” the statement said.

For more than a year, about 200,000 Shiite civilians and rebels have been holed up in the 6,000-square-mile marshes after Hussein’s crushing of their short-lived rebellion just after the Gulf War.

About 55% of Iraq’s 17.5 million people are Shiites.