Deadly clash with Marines signals spreading revolt in Iraq

By The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times

	DAVID SWANSON / KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS A U.S. Marine tries to drive a Humvee that was attacked yesterday in a coordinated ambush against American troops in Ramadi, Iraq.
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Troops from the United States and several allied countries also came under fire from militiamen loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, a militant Shiite Muslim cleric, in cities across southern Iraq.

The clash in Ramadi, about 60 miles west of Baghdad, erupted when gunmen ambushed and engaged Marines near the provincial governor's palace, according to a senior defense official in Washington, D.C.

In addition to the Marines killed, about 20 were wounded, the official said. He said the Marines inflicted "heavy casualties" on their attackers.

U.S. officials said Monday that they were seeking to arrest al-Sadr in connection with the murder last year of a pro-American Shiite ayatollah.

The uprising by Shiites presented a scenario long feared: a loss of control over the majority Shiites, who are considered essential to an orderly handover of power to Iraqis on June 30.

The spreading revolt presents new worries for the Bush administration. To quell the violence, the United States might have to resort to heavy force. That could consolidate anti-American sentiment and set off a cycle of retaliation.

Yesterday in Fallujah, where anti-American sentiment recently boiled over, Marine officers said they had established control over much of the city. Four civilian security contractors were killed last week in the city, and the bodies of two of them were mutilated.

In Washington, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld reported that several people wanted in connection with the deaths of the contractors had been taken into custody.

In addition to yesterday's casualties, the U.S. military reported that five Marines were killed Monday — one in Fallujah and the others on the western outskirts of Baghdad. It also said five Army soldiers had been killed since Sunday in attacks in Kirkuk, Mosul and a Shiite Muslim neighborhood in Baghdad.

Sources quoted by the Associated Press put the number of Iraqi dead in the most recent fighting at more than 60.

As of yesterday, 619 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq last year, according to the Department of Defense.

Followers of firebrand cleric al-Sadr attacked coalition troops yesterday in Baghdad and five southern cities: Bulgarian forces in Karbala, Spanish troops in Diwaniyah, Italians in Nasiriyah, Ukrainians in Kut and British soldiers in Amarah.

U.S. forces, already stretched thin by an insurgency in Sunni areas north and west of Baghdad, have delegated authority to allied troops. But for months, those units have often been reluctant to play too assertive a role in a region where security is deteriorating, and some U.S. officials have privately questioned whether they are up to the task.

The militia, known as the al-Mahdi Army, showed no signs of relenting in a coordinated campaign that has seized bridges, police stations and municipal buildings.

Since August, the al-Mahdi Army has grown as a force in southern Iraq, competing for influence and power with three other militias in the region as the date approaches for the U.S. transfer of sovereignty. Estimates of its number range from 3,000 to 10,000.

	DAVID SWANSON / KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS Passing an unidentified body in the background, a U.S. Marine carries the body of a fellow Marine killed during an attack on American troops in Ramadi, Iraq. A senior U.S. defense official said the Marines inflicted "heavy casualties" on insurgents.

The uprising, which has persisted despite calls for calm by religious leaders and members of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council, has roiled Baghdad and much of southern Iraq, where anger has grown over civilian casualties. U.S. officials acknowledged the violence but said it would not alter the June 30 date for transferring sovereignty to an Iraqi government.

President Bush, speaking at a community college in southern Arkansas, repeated the vow he made Monday to meet the deadline, acknowledging that "it's going to take awhile for them to understand what freedom is all about."

Iraq's civilian administrator, L. Paul Bremer, said on ABC's "Good Morning America": "We have problems, there's no hiding that. But basically Iraq is on track to realize the kind of Iraq that Iraqis want and Americans want, which is a democratic Iraq."

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, in London for talks with British officials, appealed to the U.S. to dispatch thousands more troops. Rumsfeld said that if commanders on the ground request more forces, more will be sent.

The U.S. administration was long divided on how to deal with the ah-Mahdi Army and its leader, al-Sadr, 30, a junior cleric and the son of a revered ayatollah believed killed by Saddam's government in 1999. But after clashes in Baghdad on Sunday, occupation officials have moved to disband the militia. A warrant was made public Monday for the arrest of al-Sadr, accused of having a hand in the slaying of a cleric from a prominent religious family last April in Najaf.

Yesterday, a coalition official revealed that two other charges had been lodged against al-Sadr — one in connection with stealing from mosque collection boxes and the other regarding a pregnant woman believed to have been killed by al-Sadr bodyguards.

Yesterday, al-Sadr left a mosque in Kufa, a stronghold where he had been for two days, and moved to his office a few miles away in Najaf.

In Sadr City, a Baghdad slum of 2 million named for al-Sadr's father, hundreds gathered before al-Sadr's office yesterday, waving flags and chanting his name. Two U.S. tanks were parked a few hundred yards away, their barrels trained on the crowds. Residents reported clashes overnight, and an Arabic television station said fighting had renewed last night.

In Kadhimiya, a Shiite neighborhood that is home to a popular shrine, residents said the prospect of arresting clerics recalled Saddam's repression of the clergy and ran the risk of turning the hunt for al-Sadr into something Iraqis would perceive as a broader move against clergy, who still command respect, in part for their opposition to Saddam. Some wondered why U.S. forces had chosen to confront al-Sadr now, when the charges against him were months old.

"The most important thing is not to lay hands on things sacred to the heart of the Muslims. You don't touch the clerics or mosques," said Hussein Ali Tukmachi, who runs a sign-painting shop near the shrine. "This creates a very dangerous situation. We really need to cool the situation down."

Washington Post correspondents Pamela Constable in Fallujah and Karl Vick and Sewell Chan in Baghdad, staff writers Bradley Graham in Washington and Dana Milbank in El Dorado, Ark., and special correspondent Saad Sarhan in Najaf contributed to this report. Material from Knight Ridder Newspapers and The Associated Press is also included.

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