Clashes Pit Troops Against Sadr’s Forces

As the city of Najaf braced for a possible military showdown, clashes between Shiite Muslim militants and Iraqi and U.S.-led troops broke out in the Iraqi capital and other cities Wednesday, killing dozens of people and wounding scores more.

In Baghdad’s Sadr City slum -- a stronghold of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr, whose militia is challenging U.S. and Iraqi forces in Najaf -- gun-toting fighters clad in black continued to defy government warnings to give up, and they flouted an evening curfew meant to curb violence in the streets.

Mortar blasts and sporadic gunfire echoed in the streets, sending residents scurrying for cover. The Health Ministry said 10 people were killed Wednesday in Baghdad and 39 wounded.

“We’re afraid that last night’s [fighting] will be repeated again,” Abbas Ali, a car parts vendor, said Wednesday morning during a lull in the clashes. It “started at 11 p.m. and didn’t stop till 6 a.m. We couldn’t leave our house. We wish that the standoff could somehow be solved.”

Some militants set up makeshift guard posts on roads leading to the slum, their weapons close at hand, waiting for American armored vehicles to rumble in. Posters on the walls commemorated “martyrs” belonging to Sadr’s Al Mahdi militia who died in clashes with U.S. troops.

Graffiti on one wall warned residents not to go near American convoys, saying that Al Mahdi fighters would be carrying out “hostile operations” against U.S. forces.

“How can we get our daily bread under such difficult circumstances?” said Ammar Rubaiee, who owns a generator repair shop in the neighboring Shaab district.

Heavy clashes between Sadr supporters and British troops in the southern city of Amarah, about 170 miles east of Najaf, killed at least 14 people and injured 42, the Health Ministry said.

Residents reported seeing British tanks and helicopters swooping down on the city, and homes and schools damaged.

Sadr’s representative in Amarah, Sheik Ali Assadi, said the fighting occurred in the city center. He said that 18 Al Mahdi members were killed and 45 hurt. In Diwaniya, about 35 miles east of Najaf, violence killed seven and wounded 52, the ministry said.

The spiraling violence in Iraq’s Shiite-dominated south had prompted some officials who are supportive of Sadr to demand greater autonomy from the interim central government Tuesday. But on Wednesday, a close Sadr aide cautioned the officials against such a move.

“We do not support the decision to separate the southern provinces from the Iraqi motherland, because this will bring happiness to the American troops,” Sheik Ahmed Shibani said.

Elsewhere, two Marines were killed and three other people hurt when a CH-53 helicopter crashed in the western province of Al Anbar, the U.S. military announced. It said no hostile fire was seen.

The deaths of the Marines, who were not identified, brought to at least 933 the number of U.S. military fatalities.

In other violence, American fighter jets dropped bombs on Fallouja, an island of Sunni Muslim resistance 35 miles west of Baghdad, residents said. Three people were killed and five wounded, hospital officials said.

Residents said U.S. choppers and fighter jets began pounding the Shuhada district around 7 p.m.

Fallouja is suspected of being a refuge for insurgents who have mounted a nonstop campaign of deadly bombing and suicide attacks across Iraq. After besieging the town in April, U.S. forces have mostly adopted a hands-off approach to the city, but firefights have erupted periodically.

Sunni insurgents and loyalists of deposed President Saddam Hussein were suspected of assassinating a prominent Shiite political leader, Ali Mahmoud Khalisi, on Wednesday. A spokesman for Khalisi’s political party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said Khalisi was gunned down in his car south of Baghdad.

About 20 miles northeast of the capital, in the town of Khan Bani Saad, a young girl was among six people killed by a roadside bomb. The device exploded about 10:30 a.m. along the town’s main street. Ten people were injured.

In another development, Ahmad Chalabi, one of the country’s most prominent politicians, returned to Iraq from Iran to face charges of counterfeiting money, an associate said.

Once groomed by some U.S. officials as a future leader of Iraq, Chalabi has fallen out of favor with the Bush administration amid questions about his ties to Iran and about prewar information he provided on Hussein’s alleged efforts to build weapons of mass destruction.

Mithal Alusi, a member of Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress party, said Chalabi returned Wednesday and was with family and friends. It was unclear whether police had served Chalabi with an arrest warrant issued over the weekend or whether he would be jailed.

An arrest warrant was also issued for his nephew, Salem Chalabi, who is in charge of the war crimes tribunal convened to try Hussein and other high-ranking members of the former regime. He is suspected of involvement in the slaying of an Iraqi Finance Ministry official. Salem Chalabi, who is in London, denies involvement in the killing and has said he will not return to Iraq unless his safety can be assured.

Meanwhile, Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that a severed head and body found last month in the Tigris River were the remains of Ivailo Kepov, a 32-year-old truck driver abducted by militants in late June, wire services reported.

Confirmation of Kepov’s death came as an Islamic website carried a videotape Wednesday that appeared to show militants in Iraq beheading a man they identified as a CIA agent. A U.S. official said the CIA had accounted for all employees and that no one was missing, Associated Press reported.

Special correspondents Raheem Salman in Baghdad and Uthman Ghanim in Basra, Iraq, contributed to this report.