US-led force storms mosque in attack on Iraq militia

US forces and Iraqi soldiers launched a major offensive against a Shi'ite militia yesterday, killing about 20 in one raid on a mosque and pounding other positions around the holy city of Najaf.

The fiercest fighting in the area for weeks killed at least 34 people and wounded dozens, including civilians, overnight and seemed a definitive response to a tentative truce offer made by an aide to the cleric leading the Mehdi Army, Moqtada al-Sadr.

Pools of blood lay inside the green-domed Sahla mosque, one of three main shrines in Kufa near Najaf, and spent cartridges littered the courtyard. A tank had smashed down the door of the building, and the US army said weapons were found inside.

It said American soldiers had not entered the mosque, instead an Iraqi "counter-terrorism force" had been sent in.

"We have no intention of entering the shrines," Major General Martin Dempsey, commander of the US-led force fighting Sadr's militia in its key strongholds, said in a statement.

Sadr, a young firebrand preacher from a respected clerical dynasty, has irritated moderate leaders of Iraq's majority Shi'ites with the use of holy places in his revolt.

Shi'ite leaders have also demanded the Americans show restraint in the shrine cities. The US military says it respects the sites but will attack mosques used in combat.

Washington's main military ally in Iraq, Britain, has voiced disquiet about "heavy-handed" US tactics, according to a Foreign Office memo leaked to the Sunday Times newspaper.

London officials were also quoted complaining the scandal over US troops abusing Iraqi prisoners had "sapped the moral authority" of the occupying forces, who are due to hand back sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government on June 30.

In a new twist to the affair, a military lawyer defending one of the sergeants accused of beating and sexually humiliating detainees at Abu Ghraib was quoted as alleging that the overall US commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, may have been present at the Baghdad prison at the time.

"An estimated 20 Mehdi militia were killed after firing on coalition forces during a raid on the Sahla mosque in Kufa," a US army spokesman said. No US casualties were reported.

Staff at the main hospital in Najaf said they had taken in 14 dead and 37 wounded, mostly civilians.

About 100 Kufa residents gathered to inspect the damage. "I feel humiliated," said Ali Wasi. "Our sanctity has been violated. These houses of prayer are the most valuable things we own, for Shi'ites. I will resist them until the last drop of blood in my body," he said, speaking in the mosque's courtyard.

The offensive came hours after Sadr's aide floated a vague truce offer for the two main holy cities, Najaf and Kerbala. A coalition spokesman said Sadr must first give himself up and disband his force which began the revolt last month.

Near the Sunni flashpoint city of Falluja west of Baghdad, a coordinated bomb and rocket-propelled grenade attack killed two US troops, soldiers who witnessed the attack said. An uneasy truce has been in force in the town since Marines pulled out.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has insisted in public that he has no differences on strategy with Washington.

But the Sunday Times quoted a British Foreign Office memo as saying: "Heavy-handed US military tactics in Falluja and Najaf some weeks ago have fuelled both Sunni and Shi'ite opposition to the coalition and lost us much public support inside Iraq."

The abuse scandal had further undermined the image of the occupiers.

US President George W. Bush, campaigning for re-election in November, has blamed the scandal on the "wrongdoing of a few" - namely seven military police reservists charged with abusing prisoners. One was convicted at court martial last week.

Some of the others, however, are expected to argue that they were following orders, notably from intelligence officers.

The Washington Post cited legal proceedings yesterday that showed the company officer of defendant Staff Sergeant Ivan "Chip" Frederick may testify that Mr Sanchez was present at Abu Ghraib during some interrogations.

Mr Sanchez's staff issued a flat denial in a statement. The run-up to the June 30 handover has been marked by violence against Iraqis working with the Americans - a deputy interior minister survived a suicide car bombing that killed five people outside his home on Saturday.

Last week, the head of the Governing Council was assassinated in a similar attack.