Shi'ite militia, Iraqi troops in fierce clashes

DIWANIYA, Iraq - At least 20 Iraqi soldiers have been killed in street fighting with Shi'ite militiamen in the town of Diwaniya, some of the bloodiest clashes yet among rival powers in Shi'ite southern Iraq.

A Polish helicopter was hit by gunfire as it provided air support to Iraqi troops but landed safely. US aircraft also took part and US-led foreign troops sealed off the city before calm returned by nightfall after talks among Shi'ite leaders.

Underlining the variety of deadly challenges facing the 100-day-old national unity government of Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki, a suicide car bomber in Baghdad killed 13 policemen and wounded 62 other people outside the Interior Ministry.

Maliki has vowed to disarm all militias, including those of fellow Shi'ite Islamists with seats in the coalition cabinet. But US-trained government forces face an uphill task.

The Defence Ministry, local officials and the Mehdi Army of populist young cleric Moqtada al-Sadr gave conflicting accounts of battles overnight and into the day in Diwaniya, a normally placid provincial capital, 180km south of Baghdad.

A Defence Ministry spokesman in the capital said 20 of its soldiers were killed along with 50 unidentified "gunmen" who had stormed police stations after dark on Sunday. A local leader of the Mehdi Army insisted only two of his men had been killed.

A US military official said 30 Iraqi troops were wounded.

An agreement brokered in the nearby clerical city of Najaf between Sadr and the Diwaniya governor, from a party that rivals Sadr within Maliki's dominant Shi'ite bloc, brought an edgy calm after many hours of mortar, rocket and machinegun fire.

The US military said in a statement that casualty totals were unclear. "Iraqi army and police forces successfully fended off an attack by a large group of terrorists ... after a 12-hour battle," it said.

The Baghdad bombing resembled many carried out by al Qaeda and pro-Saddam Hussein militants from the once dominant Sunni minority and was one of the worst in the capital since US and Iraqi troops launched a security clampdown three weeks ago.

Nine US soldiers were among more than 60 people killed yesterday in violence that challenged Maliki's latest assertion his forces had the upper hand and there would be no civil war.

The chief US military spokesman said killings in Baghdad had almost halved this month from last and that car bombings were at an eight-month low. But Major General William Caldwell acknowledged there had been a spike again in the past two days.

Maliki has vowed to take on militias, and, senior officials say, plans to ease some Sadr supporters out of his cabinet.

But Sadr remains popular among poor Shi'ites, partly for his charity work modelled on Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hizbollah, and despite the crushing by US troops of his two revolts in 2004.

He has lately enjoyed warm ties with Iran, whose Shi'ite Islamist leaders maintain close contact in Iraq and whom the United States accuses of providing arms to Shi'ite militias.

A hospital official and an army source in Diwaniya both put the army's death toll at 25 with a further five missing. A Reuters reporter saw 19 bodies in army uniform in the morgue, as well as seven civilians. The hospital said nine civilians died, adding that 51 people, including eight soldiers, were wounded.

Casualty figures for militants are often hard to establish.

A senior police source in the town said Iraqi troops stormed an area known as a Mehdi Army stronghold, partly in response to a rocket attack on a nearby Polish military base on Saturday.

The Defence Ministry said troops moved into the town after police stations came under attack and they were now in control.

The US military said fighting began when Iraqi troops came under fire after midnight while investigating disturbances.

A Reuters reporter saw gunmen in plain clothes in control of intersections in the south of the town in the afternoon, while Iraqi troops appeared in control of a northern district.

A senior Sadr official in Diwaniya, Nahidh al-Naieli, said the Mehdi Army would "halt military operations" in the town.

"Sadr also asked the Iraqi military to end raids against the Mehdi Army and insisted that the Mehdi Army has the right to deploy its soldiers wherever it wants," Naieli said.

Rival groups are vying for control of Shi'ite southern Iraq, site of one of the world's great oilfields around Basra.

British Defence Minister Des Browne, in Baghdad on Monday, said his forces would hand over a second of the four British-run southern provinces to formal Iraqi security control shortly.

Such handovers are central to Washington and London's hopes for withdrawal. Setbacks for Iraqi forces in imposing the will of the central government show the difficulties that lie ahead.

- REUTERS