The siege of the Imam Ali shrine in the holy city of Najaf was on Wednesday approaching its end, with US forces reportedly only 20m away and most of the rebel Mehdi Army fighters said to have either fled or been killed.
Heavy fighting was ongoing on the streets of Najaf’s Old City but, according to The Guardian correspondent Luke Harding, who is nearby, the three-week siege was entering its final hours.
Fighters loyal to the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr are holed up in the shrine, one of Shia Islam’s most revered sites, in what has been the greatest security crisis for the interim Iraqi government so far.
US and Iraqi forces had moved closer to the shrine over recent days, supported by US airpower. US aircraft were on Wednesday continuing to attack the militia’s decreasing number of positions.
Harding said the shrine was now entirely surrounded by US armour, with Iraqi forces poised for a final raid during which he believes they will not meet very strong resistance.
US Army 1st Lieutenant Michael Throckmortan said: ”What we are trying to do is shape up the battlefield. We are trying to isolate them in one place before attacking.”
Harding said al-Sadr, who has not been seen in public for days, may have already fled the shrine, with his apparent absence seeming to have sapped his followers’ morale. Hundreds of his fighters have been seen leaving Najaf over recent days.
Relentless US bombing appeared to be weakening the militants. The US military has said it has killed hundreds of Mehdi army fighters, although the militants have said the true figure is much lower.
It would be helpful to the government if any raid on the shrine coincided with the return to Iraq of Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani, the country’s most powerful Shia cleric. He was on Wednesday en route to Najaf after receiving treatment in London for a heart problem. Aides of the 73-year-old cleric have called for a nationwide march to Najaf to end the siege in the holy city.
On Tuesday, the Iraqi defence minister again demanded that fighters loyal to al-Sadr surrender or face a violent raid.
Officials have said that any raid on the shrine would be conducted by Iraqi forces, because the presence of US troops at the holy site would further inflame Shia opinion.
In recent days, US and Iraqi forces in Najaf have tightened the cordon around the Old City and the neighbouring shrine, with roadblocks today preventing vehicles from entering the area.
The defence minister, Hazem Shaalan, addressing Iraqi national guard troops in the city on Tuesday, said Iraqi forces would head toward the shrine ”tonight” to await the signal for a raid or the capitulation of the militants.
”When your brothers approach the holy shrine compound, they will direct calls of mercy to those [militants] to surrender,” Shaalan told the troops. ”They have hours to surrender.”
On Wednesday, in separate violence west of the capital, Baghdad, US warplanes and tanks bombed the volatile city of Falluja for more than two hours, killing at least four people, hospital officials and residents said.
The city is a base for Sunni insurgents whom the government believes are responsible for months of kidnappings, bombings and other attacks against US-led troops, Iraqi forces and civilians across Iraq.
A US military spokesperson said tanks and aircraft had struck several insurgent ”firing positions”. Adel Khamis, a doctor at Falluja General hospital, said four people were killed and four wounded in the strikes.
In the southern city of Amara, clashes between British forces and militants loyal to al-Sadr killed 12 people and injured 22 others, Dr Sa’ad Mahmoud, of al-Zahrawi General hospital, said.
The fighting began when militants attacked a British foot patrol with small arms and fired mortar rounds at a building housing UK troops, residents said. – Guardian Unlimited Â