Occupiers target Shiite cleric: As many as 11, including 3 GIs, die

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Clash With Shiites and Bomb Attack Leave 4 G.I.'s Dead (excerpt)
By JOEL BRINKLEY

Published: October 18, 2003

KARBALA, Iraq, Oct. 17 ? On a gritty street at the edge of town, a
joint United States-Iraqi military patrol fell into a firefight with
two dozen heavily armed guards of an ambitious and militant Shiite
cleric near midnight on Thursday, leaving at least 10 people dead,
including 3 American servicemen and 2 Iraqi security officers. Seven
more Americans were reported wounded in the gun battle.

With the death of a fourth American, a military policeman killed by a
roadside bomb in the Baghdad area on Friday, the 24-hour period was
the deadliest for American forces here in a month, pushing the number
of American combat deaths since President Bush declared an end to
major hostilities to 101.

The American task here appears to be growing ever more complicated.
Until recently, the American forces had been battling Sunni Muslims,
Saddam Hussein loyalists and perhaps other Islamic fundamentalists who
have slipped across the border from neighboring countries.

But in the past week, Americans have begun facing pockets of
resistance from elements of the Shiite Muslim community, which
constitutes more than 60 percent of Iraq's population and had until
now accepted ? or at least tolerated ? the American presence.

The guards involved in the gun battle work for Mahmoud al-Hassani, a
cleric allied with Moktada al-Sadr. Americans blame Mr. Sadr for
several recent disturbances and attacks, and last week he proclaimed
his own government for Iraq.

The firefight appeared to signal a hardening resolve on the part of
the United States to face down such militant Shiite clerics.

American and Iraqi forces returned to the scene here on Friday
morning, searching for Sheik Hassani, witnesses said. Another brief
gun battle ensued, though no one was hurt, they added. But the cleric
had fled and remains in hiding, said one of his guards, Ibrahim
Moussef, standing in front of his headquarters, where the gunfights
occurred.

Mr. Moussef said he and 23 other men armed with AK-47 assault rifles
had fought the American and Iraqi officers for half an hour the night
before, and that six of his own men had been killed. Another of the
cleric's guards put the number at eight. To crowds of the sheik's
followers on the street on Friday afternoon, Mr. Moussef shouted,
"This was an honor. We are ready to die for the sheik."

Before Thursday night, Karbala had not been the scene of any
significant attacks on American forces since major combat ended. Many
people interviewed here in recent months, and even today, seemed
pleased by the American presence in Iraq.

But followers of Sheik Hassani hold a different view. A poster on the
wall adjacent to the scene of the shootout calls Iraqis who cooperate
with the Americans "traitors."

American officials in Iraq hold Sheik Hassani's reputed ally, Mr.
Sadr, accountable for several recent disturbances, including an ambush
last week in which two American soldiers were killed in Sadr City, the
taking over of the district council office there and a gunfight in
Karbala earlier this week in which at least three Iraqis were killed
and several followers of a rival sheik were taken hostage.

This week, a spokesman for the military said the United States
intended to hold Mr. Sadr and others like him "accountable for their
actions."

In an unusually terse and serious stat


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