Cleric vows to repel U.S. forces, demands Iraqi justice over abuse

By Raheem Salman and Tracy Wilkinson
The Los Angeles Times

HADI MIZBAN / AP Muqtada al-Sadr speaks yesterday in Kufa, Iraq. The cleric ridiculed President Bush's attempts at apology for Iraqi prisoner abuse.

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KUFA, Iraq — Surrounded by a legion of armed followers and ignoring the U.S. military offensive closing in on him, defiant Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr swept into the mosque here yesterday and vowed to rid Iraq of its American occupiers.

Even as fighting raged in predominantly Shiite cities nearby, the anti-American cleric who has led a monthlong rebellion in south-central Iraq seized upon the inflammatory issue of the moment, denouncing the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers and demanding that the Americans involved face Iraqi justice.

"How do you (Americans) want to control the world when you cannot control a handful of soldiers?" al-Sadr proclaimed in his Friday sermon as he dismissed President Bush's apology the day before as an empty gesture. "What sort of freedom and democracy can we expect from you when you take such joy in torturing Iraqi prisoners?

Al-Sadr traveled from his hometown of Najaf to Kufa — six miles away — to lead Friday prayers. U.S. commanders suggested they were refraining from moving against al-Sadr on the Islamic day of prayers.

One of al-Sadr's senior aides went before worshippers yesterday in the southern city of Basra waving what he claimed were photographs of three Iraqi women being raped at a British-run prison. The aide, Sheik Abdul-Sattar Bahadli, announced that anyone capturing a British female soldier would be allowed to keep her as a slave, while anyone capturing a British male soldier would be paid $350. He seemed to suggest the prison abuse justified such actions.

Gunmen loyal to al-Sadr attacked British troops in Basra today. The black-garbed militiamen moved in large numbers through the streets of the city, assaulting the governor's building and opening fire on British patrols in several neighborhoods. A rocket-propelled grenade was fired at the U.S.-led coalition headquarters, witnesses said.

British troops arrived to reinforce the guards at the governor's building and took control, witnesses said. At least one person was wounded, but the full extent of casualties was not immediately known.

Elsewhere, U.S. troops clashed yesterday with al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army in Najaf and in the holy city of Karbala, 50 miles to the north.

Two militiamen and two civilians slain in the fighting were brought to Karbala's main hospital, and at least 14 people were wounded. In Najaf, clashes killed at least 12 al-Sadr gunmen, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said in Baghdad.
 
Six members of a family, including children ages 2, 4 and 5, were killed and three others were wounded when their home near Najaf was hit, apparently by American fire.

Also today, attackers set off a bomb outside the house of an Iraqi police official in Habhad, 12 miles north of Baqouba, killing three members of his family and wounding three others, officials said.

Material from The Associated Press and Knight Ridder Newspapers is included in this report.