Explosions and gunfire erupted inside the Shiite Muslim holy city of Najaf on Friday as United States forces sought to crush the last major insurgency in Iraq ahead of the June 30 return of sovereignty.
But as the fighting resumed, US overseer for Iraq Paul Bremer announced that US forces would pull out of the country if a new sovereign government said they were no longer welcome.
”If the provisional government asks us to leave we will leave,” he said, referring to a post-June 30 administration after the handover of sovereignty.
”I don’t think that will happen but obviously we don’t stay in countries where we’re not welcome,” he said at a working lunch in Baghdad with Iraqi officials from Diyala province.
Meanwhile, more allegations of torture surfaced at the infamous US-run Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad, as about 315 prisoners were released and told stories of psychological and physical abuse.
The prisoners were freed a day after US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld paid a surprise visit to Iraq to boost morale amid the damaging abuse scandal that has deeply embarrassed the US administration.
One prisoner said two American soldiers had sex in front of him in the complex’s hospital wing and another said he saw wires attached to the tongue and genitals of a cousin who was also being held.
”They kept me in solitary confinement for six days. They hung me by my hands from the wall for five hours,” said Abu Mustafa (24), who claimed he was arrested 10 months ago and accused of being a leader of a terrorist group.
While acknowledging that abuses had been committed at Abu Ghraib, Rumsfeld told US troops on Thursday that they should be proud of their country and their cause in Iraq.
The US military is to hold its first court-martial next week of a US soldier over the abuse. Earlier this week it announced two more to come, with dates to be announced later.
Britain has been grappling with its own abuse allegations, but insisted on Thursday that photos purporting to show British troops mistreating an Iraqi prisoner were ”categorically not taken in Iraq”.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in a newspaper interview on Friday, said he will not change course over Iraq as he dismissed calls for him to distance himself from US President George Bush.
Blair also told the Independent newspaper that there is no substance to talk of his imminent resignation even as his popularity slips in opinion polls.
”Despite the appalling stuff about prisoner abuse, we are trying with the majority of the Iraqi people to get the country on its feet,” he said.
”We have just got to make sure we prevail and succeed. It is in the interests of the world that we do. The alternative is not one we should contemplate.”
But Denmark’s Defence Ministry said two Danish medics reported seeing the results of abusive treatment inflicted by British soldiers on two Iraqis, one of whom allegedly died of injuries inflicted during interrogation.
US troops on the frontlines around the southern city of Najaf, one of the holiest places in Shiite Islam, battled militiamen loyal to rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr about 1km from the sacred Imam Ali mausoleum.
Loud explosions rocked the southern edge of the city on the Muslim holy day. Fighting also broke out in the vast cemetery where at least three US tanks could be seen.
As US helicopters circled overhead, armed black-clad men veiled with scarves were seen running through the cemetery and spreading out across the area, which was covered in black smoke.
Hospital sources said seven people, including an Afghan pilgrim, had been wounded in the latest fighting in Najaf.
In the area to the south, known as Bahr al-Najaf, about 2 500 US soldiers are camped in the desert. Al-Sadr’s fighters have dug in with heavy weapons on a hill overlooking Bahr, about 100m south of the shrine.
Major General Martin Dempsey, commander of US troops in Najaf, told CNN television that his troops are still hoping a political solution can be reached among the Iraqis to end the standoff.
”The combination of what we are doing and the political outreach will achieve our desired outcome pretty soon,” he said, adding that al-Sadr has lost support among the people of Najaf.
But US-backed Najaf governor Adnan al-Zorfi said late on Thursday that a ”US entry into the centre of Najaf may be imminent”.
”Nobody can set conditions on the Americans,” he said, urging al-Sadr to disband his militia ”immediately” and face criminal charges over the alleged murder of a rival cleric last year.
Al-Sadr has snubbed mediation efforts and calls from Shiite and tribal leaders to disband his Mehdi Army, vowing instead to defend Islam and lead his mainly impoverished young followers to ”martyrdom”.
Friday prayers were cancelled in another Shiite shrine city of Karbala, where there was sporadic gunfire but no major clashes. The centre of the city around the two revered shrines of Imams Hussein and Abbas were empty, with militiamen controlling the buildings and hotels nearby.
The US military announced that a marine had died in fighting in western Al-Anbar province on Thursday, bringing to 778 the number of US troops killed since the start of the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
On the diplomatic front, France said it is willing to work ”in a constructive spirit” for the next United Nations resolution on Iraq ahead of the June 30 transfer of power.
”Our mindset in the current time of crisis is to find good ideas and be useful,” French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said late on Thursday after hosting a dinner for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
”We’re ready to work in a constructive spirit,” he said, stressing repeatedly that Baghdad ”must have authority over the Iraqi forces”.
Meanwhile, the beheading of a US civilian who went missing in Iraq continued to provoke horror across the globe.
Malaysia announced that it will no longer allow local companies to host websites with links to terrorist groups, after it was revealed that the site showing the beheading of US citizen Nick Berg was hosted there. — Sapa-AFP
US forces taught torture techniques