Clashes Go On as Radical Shiite Hints at Accord

The radical imam whose militias are surrounded by U.S. soldiers in Iraq’s holiest city hinted Tuesday that the standoff could end peacefully if prominent Shiite Muslim leaders asked him to halt his insurrection.

But even as negotiations to resolve the crisis continued, militias loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr clashed with U.S. forces in the first skirmish since more than 2,500 American soldiers converged on the outskirts of Najaf as part of an effort to quell two weeks of uprisings across Iraq.

In an Arabic television interview, Sadr indicated that he would consider ending his insurgency by saying, “I am ready to deal with any” of the country’s top clerics. The son of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and negotiators from the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council met with Sadr on Monday evening in an effort to prevent further bloodshed in this city of mosques and minarets.

It is unclear, however, whether Sistani would be willing to intertwine himself with the fate of Sadr, who lacks Sistani’s religious credentials. Sadr has so far refused to surrender, and in the TV interview said that if he dies, his followers should “keep up their struggle for liberation.”

Such proclamations have kept the tension around Najaf and the rest of Iraq high. A U.S. soldier was killed Monday night when his convoy en route to Najaf struck a bomb.

On Tuesday, a military helicopter was shot down outside Fallouja, where Marines have encircled hundreds of Sunni Muslim insurgents for four days as a tenuous cease-fire continues. Three crew members and four members of a rapid response unit seeking to rescue the crew were wounded by enemy fire.

Two Marines were killed Tuesday in Iraq, the military said. One died in a firefight in Fallouja; the military did not release details on the other.

U.S. authorities have also reported that 40 hostages from 12 countries have been seized by militant groups.

The spate of recent abductions has further unsettled an already eerie atmosphere throughout Iraq. The militants’ intentions are often hard to gauge. In the kidnappings of Chinese and Russians, for example, the victims were released after the militants were scolded by clerics and apparently learned that Moscow and Beijing opposed the war in Iraq.

The U.S. State Department said Tuesday that four bodies had been found outside Baghdad and that government officials were in touch with families of seven U.S. civilians missing in Iraq. The identities of the dead had not been confirmed late Tuesday, a State Department spokesman said.

The bodies were found early Tuesday, and there had been conversations “all day” with the families of the seven Americans, a spokesman said. No specifics were given on the location of the bodies, and officials did not confirm whether they had any connection to the attack last week on a U.S. fuel convoy operated by employees of contractor KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton Co. All seven of the missing Americans were KBR workers.

At least nine U.S. hostages have not been freed, and the FBI is working with Iraqi police to track down the kidnappers. “We will not negotiate with terrorists and kidnappers,” said Dan Senor, the top spokesman for the U.S. civilian authority.

As the U.S. seeks to regain control over Iraq, its forces are exerting much of their pressure on Sadr, a 30-year-old cleric indicted in the murder of a religious rival. Teams of soldiers swept through Baghdad on Tuesday, arresting 45 Sadr followers and confiscating scores of weapons. To the south around Najaf, coalition forces clashed sporadically with Sadr’s militias and remained adamant that he would be “captured or killed.”

How to go about that has proved tricky and is another indication of the difficulties the U.S. faces in attempting to contain the powerful religious and tribal influences running through Iraq.

In another effort to squeeze Sadr, U.S. soldiers fanned through a hotel in Baghdad and led away Sheik Hazim Aaraji, a close Sadr advisor who was attending a tribal conference. The troops loaded the sheik into an armored personnel carrier, and military authorities questioned him for nearly five hours before releasing him.

“He was not an imminent threat to security,” said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt.

Aaraji’s brief detention outraged some Iraqis.

“The sheik is not a terrorist. He doesn’t have a gun,” said Jaleel Rifai Husseni, a member of the Baghdad Council of Tribal Chiefs. “The Americans humiliate us when they do this.”

“If American policy is to arrest our religious leaders, things will get worse,” said a U.S.-trained Iraqi policeman who gave his name only as Falah. “Iraq is a home and the fathers of this home are the sheiks and clerics. The Americans are showing that they are against Islam and they are against Iraq.”

Such sentiments seem common in the country, especially in the predominantly Shiite south where Sadr is hiding.

In his televised news conference Tuesday, Sadr called U.S. forces “invaders,” adding, “I don’t fear anyone but God, and I am ready to sacrifice myself for this nation.”

With as many as 6,000 militiamen under his control, Sadr is considered more of a firebrand street rouser than a respected religious thinker.

He recently withdrew his forces from Kut, Nasiriya and Hillah but has kept his gunmen scattered in Najaf and Karbala.

At a new desert post outside Najaf, U.S. military officials refined their mission to capture or kill Sadr. “We’ve consolidated north of Najaf and are preparing for combat operations,” said Maj. Gen. John Batiste, commander of the 1st Infantry Division. “We are going to crush [him].”

Sadr’s militia planted improvised explosives and blew up bridges in recent days in an apparent effort to block the large deployment of U.S. troops toward Najaf.

“They’re definitely using signals and they’re capable of establishing complex ambushes,” Batiste said, adding that he believed Sadr’s forces had joined Sunni Muslims and former Saddam Hussein supporters in launching attacks.

In a sample of what type of battles may lie ahead, a convoy of six U.S. military vehicles on reconnaissance patrol along the eastern side of Kufa, about 10 miles from Najaf, drove into an ambush Tuesday morning by between 25 to 50 Sadr gunmen.

The soldiers were attacked by at least six rocket-propelled grenades as they traveled through a traffic circle near a bridge crossing the Euphrates River. The convoy was hit by more gunfire from Iraqis wearing police uniforms and from residents running out of mosques with AK-47s, said Capt. Ad Godinez. Eight Iraqis were reportedly killed.

Some Iraqis say Sadr has -- at least briefly -- articulated their frustration with the American occupation.

“I am ready for whatever the Iraqi people decide, or [to listen] to whoever is representing them,” Sadr said.

Fleishman reported from Baghdad and Sanders from Najaf. Times staff writers Paul Richter and John Hendren in Washington also contributed to this report.