US helicopter gunships opened fire on Shiite militants hiding in Najaf's massive cemetery yesterday as US patrols armed with speakers warned the militants to leave the city immediately or face death.
US tanks drove into the cemetery, explosions shook the streets and black smoke rose over parts of the city, but the fighting with militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia appeared more sporadic than in recent days.
A large fire broke out at a hotel about 300m from the Imam Ali Shrine, Najaf's holiest site, which fighters have reportedly been using as a base. Witnesses said insurgents were firing from inside the hotel when US forces returned fire.
In a new tactic to try to quell the violence, US military vehicles equipped with loudspeakers drove through the streets warning residents to stay away from the fighting and for militants to put down their weapons and leave Najaf or else they would be killed.
"We ask residents to cooperate with the Iraqi army and police," said a voice through a loudspeaker. "There will be no truce or negotiations with terrorists."
Small clashes also broke out in the Baghdad Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City, despite a nighttime curfew that was imposed on Monday.
Mehdi Army militants have been targeting US patrols with gunfire and have tried to set up roadblocks in the neighborhood, but US forces tore them down, said US Captain Brian O'Malley of the 1st Brigade Combat Team. There were no US casualties, he said.
While US and Iraqi forces were trying to quell the eruption of Shiite violence, attacks by Sunni Muslim militants persisted.
A roadside bomb detonated as a US military vehicle drove on a street in central Baghdad yesterday, slightly injuring two soldiers, the military said.
Another insurgent group also warned in a videotaped message that it would launch a campaign of attacks on government offices in Baghdad starting yesterday, telling employees to stay away.
The sixth day of Shiite violence came after al-Sadr warned on Monday that he would fight "until the last drop of my blood has been spilled."
Clashes intensified around Basra, where a British soldier was killed and several others wounded in fighting with militia near the cleric's office on Monday, the UK's Ministry of Defense said. Three militants were killed and more than 10 others wounded, a senior Iraqi police official said.
US President George W. Bush said on Monday that coalition forces were "making pretty good progress about stabilizing Najaf."
Much of the fighting in Najaf remained centered on the vast cemetery near the Imam Ali Shrine. The US military said Mehdi Army gunmen were launching attacks from the cemetery and then running to take refuge in the shrine compound.
Also see stories:
CLASH OF WORDS: While China’s foreign minister insisted the US play a constructive role with China, Rubio stressed Washington’s commitment to its allies in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday affirmed and welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio statements expressing the US’ “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan” and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart. The ministry in a news release yesterday also said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had stated many fallacies about Taiwan in the call. “We solemnly emphasize again that our country and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and it has been an objective fact for a long time, as well as
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
RSS