U.S. Tells Rebel Cleric to Remove Weapons From Shrines, Schools

U.S. officials issued an ultimatum Monday ordering a militant Shiite cleric to remove weapons from mosques, shrines and schools in Najaf, and a powerful explosion in an industrial building in Baghdad killed two GIs and wounded five. In the aftermath, gleeful teenagers cavorted atop and around several abandoned U.S. Humvees.

The U.S. warnings ratcheted up tensions with Muqtada Sadr, who was holed up with several thousand heavily armed militiamen in Najaf, a Shiite Muslim holy city south of Baghdad.

U.S. authorities have vowed to capture or kill the vociferously anti-U.S. Sadr, who is wanted in connection with the slaying of a rival cleric last spring. Sadr has threatened to unleash waves of suicide fighters if attacked.

The warning from U.S. officials in Baghdad came hours before American forces and insurgents engaged in some of the heaviest fighting to date on the outskirts of the holy city, with the Army using an A-130 gunship to strike enemy positions. A military spokesman in Baghdad said 43 “anti-coalition” forces were killed and an antiaircraft system destroyed.

Sadr’s Al Mahdi militia has clashed frequently with coalition troops in recent days.

“A dangerous situation is developing in Najaf, one that is putting all the law-abiding citizens of that holy city at ever greater risk,” L. Paul Bremer III, the U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, said in a tersely worded statement alleging weapons stockpiling.

“This explosive situation cannot be tolerated by those who seek a peaceful resolution to this crisis.... The restoration of these holy places to calm places of worship must begin immediately.”

Dan Senor, Bremer’s chief spokesman, later said that protections afforded houses of worship under the Geneva Convention were voided during combat if the sites were used as bases of operation or for weapons storage.

U.S. officials gave no date as to when Sadr must remove the alleged weapons, and it was unclear how much of Monday’s tough talk was simply posturing. The coalition was poised to storm Najaf and go after Sadr a week ago, but officials opted to back off and negotiate through intermediaries.

More than 2,000 U.S. troops remain massed outside Najaf. U.S. forces were said to be moving into a nearby base vacated by Spanish soldiers.

The Americans have begun to take over responsibility for Najaf and an adjacent province in south-central Iraq in response to the withdrawal of Spanish, Honduran and Dominican troops, according to an announcement from the Polish army, which heads coalition forces overseeing the region.

“We will destroy Sadr’s militia,” said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, chief military spokesman for the coalition. “We will destroy every element of that militia.”

A representative of Sadr denied that weapons were being stockpiled and accused U.S. officials of spreading false rumors to that effect.

“This is their new lie,” Qais Khazaali said at a news conference in Najaf.

The latest verbal salvos between U.S. authorities and the Shiite cleric came on a day on which Marines engaged in a deadly firefight with Sunni Muslim insurgents in the encircled city of Fallouja.

Both standoffs remain incendiary. In the case of Sadr, even many Shiites who are appalled by his tactics and oratory fear that the troops’ entry into Najaf could provoke a backlash throughout the nation, where Shiites constitute a majority.

The south-central region, once relatively quiet, has seen violent battles since Sadr’s militia moved into Najaf and other towns and asserted control, taking over police stations and confiscating police cars. His forces also appear to have wrested control of the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf, one of the holiest shrines in Shiite Islam and a repository of huge donations from pilgrims.

Meanwhile, Bulgarian officials said insurgents had directed fire at visiting Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov as his motorcade moved Sunday from a Polish base to the Bulgarian base near the Shiite city of Karbala, north of Najaf. No casualties were reported.

Near central Baghdad on Monday, a thunderous explosion rocked an industrial building that U.S. soldiers had entered to search for “suspicious chemicals,” said Kimmitt, the military spokesman. Two soldiers were killed and five wounded. Eight Iraqis were also injured.

The building’s owner and his associates were suspected of supplying chemical agents to insurgents, Kimmitt said, adding that they might also have been involved in producing chemical weapons.

It was unclear whether the blast was deliberate or occurred accidentally as U.S. troops tried to force their way inside. One unconfirmed report said that sparks from a cutting mechanism used to slice through locks on the building might have ignited highly flammable materials stored there.

The blast badly damaged four Humvees parked outside, all of which were abandoned as U.S. forces left the scene and evacuated their wounded.

Teenagers and others clambered aboard the charred vehicles and searched for souvenirs. One man grabbed a helmet. Another found a machine gun. Others beat the Humvees with their shoes. Someone managed to drive one about 400 yards down the street.

The images of Iraqi celebration ran all day on Arab-language television.

Meanwhile, the Oil Ministry said Iraq had resumed petroleum exports two days after suicide bombers in three small boats attacked two pumping stations in the Persian Gulf. Two U.S. sailors and a Coast Guard officer were killed when one of the boats exploded as a Navy boarding team approached it.

Authorities in Basra have blamed the attack on the Al Qaeda terrorist network, and a Jordanian militant with links to Al Qaeda said his group had carried it out.

Abu Musab Zarqawi, in the name of the Jamaat al Tawhid wal Jihad, or Unity and Jihad Group, claimed responsibility in a message posted on an Islamic website that often carries statements said to be from Al Qaeda. The legitimacy of the claim could not be determined.

*

Special correspondents Suhail Ahmed and Raheem Salman in Baghdad, Saad Fakhrildeen in Najaf and Ela Kasprzycka in Warsaw contributed to this report.

--- UNPUBLISHED NOTE ---

In other stories this year, Sadr spokesman Qais Khazaali is correctly referred to as Qais Khazali.

--- END NOTE ---