United States officials vowed on Tuesday to hunt down and destroy the militia of a radical Shiite Muslim cleric, as coalition troops struggled to stop Iraq sliding into chaos with more than 150 people killed on both sides in three days of clashes.
Battles have flared in towns across southern Iraq since Sunday, with the fiercely anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr attracting growing support from discontented Shiites, angered that change has not come more quickly almost a year since their oppressor Saddam Hussein was ousted.
Calm was restored in the Sunni town of Ramadi, 80km west of Baghdad on Wednesday, a day after 12 marines were killed there in the worst single day loss for US forces this year.
Ukrainian troops were forced to withdrew from Kut, 180km south of Baghdad, after heavy fighting with Sadr’s supporters who now controlled the city, the Ukrainian defence ministry said.
”At the request of the Americans, and to preserve the life of our military, the commander of the Ukrainian contingent decided to evacuate the civil administration staff and Ukrainian troops from Kut,” the ministry said in a statement. The troops retreated to their base after fierce fighting which left several dozen Iraqis dead and one Ukrainian soldier.
US Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt vowed coalition forces would turn the tables on the Mehdi Army and called on Sadr to turn himself in to face murder charges, and help end the violence.
”Our offensive operations will be deliberate, they will be precise, and they will be powerful and they will succeed,” he pledged.
”We are now understanding more and more about the Mehdi Army, how they operate, where they operate, against who they operate,” he said.
The fierce clashes with Iraq’s normally-peaceful Shiite majority in the south have come as surprise to the US-coalition already struggling to contain an uprising by Sunni Muslim loyalists further north in the country.
US marines were locked in fierce fighting for the third day with Sunni insurgents in Fallujah, west of Baghdad. Since Tuesday evening about 46 Iraqis had been killed and dozens wounded in the town, hospital sources said.
Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne said that US Marines had reached the centre of the flashpoint city. ”The marines are now at the centre of the city,” he said.
The marine operation involving some 2 000 troops dubbed ”Vigilant Resolve” is aimed at flushing out insurgents who killed four American contractors last week, dragging their burned mutilated bodies through the streets and stringing two from a bridge.
All the city mosques were calling for a jihad against US-led occupation forces amid intense bombardments and aircraft overflights, an AFP correspondent in the town said.
The US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, has vowed to find those responsible for last week’s killings which sparked a wave of international revulsion.
The worsening security on the ground which has seen coalition troops from several European countries as well as the US come under fire has prompted growing concern.
Italian newspapers warned that the militia were planning to launch simultaneous attacks on coalition forces on Good Friday that could also target foreign civilians working in Iraq.
The militia would use rockets and car bombs to launch simultaneous attacks on coalition forces to mark the anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime on April 9, the Corriere della Sera said.
US President George Bush was talking tough, vowing in a speech earlier: ”We will not be shaken by the thugs and terrorists. These killers don’t have values … We face tough action in Iraq but we will stay the course.”
And his European allies have renewed pledges not to withdraw their troops ahead of the planned June 30 handover of power to an Iraqi authority.
But Bush was later on Wednesday to hold a teleconference with members of his National Security Council as well as the head of US Central Command, General John Abizaid, and Bremer, before phoning British Prime Minister Tony Blair, his main ally in Iraq.
Tuesday’s 12 deaths in Ramadi brought to 628 the number of US soldiers killed in action in Iraq since the US-led coalition invaded the country in March 2003 to oust Saddam, according to an AFP toll.
Some of the bloodiest clashes since Sunday have been seen in Sadr City, a poor quarter of Baghdad, pitting Shiite militias and US forces.
At least 64 people have been killed and 242 others wounded in Sadr City since the US Army launched an offensive to quell a revolt by the Mehdi Army on Sunday.
Four Iraqis were killed in a US air raid on Baghdad’s Sadr City’s Shiite district overnight and three more died from wounds sustained in fighting a day earlier, a hospital director said on Wednesday.
In the southern Shiite city of Karbala, five Iranians and three Iraqis were killed and 16 wounded during overnight clashes between US troops and Mehdi Army militiamen.
Eight Iraqis were also killed on Wednesday and 12 wounded in an exchange of gunfire with US troops during a demonstration in Hawija, 50km west of northern Kirkuk, to protest US attacks on Fallujah, police and medics said.
But calm returned to the southern city of Nasiriyah on Wednesday after a day of fierce fighting during which 15 Iraqis among them three rebels were killed.
Meanwhile, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf complained that the war in Iraq was drawing resources from the battle against al-Qaeda leaders and their supporters hiding in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In an interview to be broadcast on Wednesday night on Australian public television SBS, Musharraf said his government was receiving ”very minimal” assistance as it tried to pacify tribal areas along the Afghan border where leaders of al-Qaeda and the former Afghan Taliban regime are believed to be hiding. – Sapa-AFP