Council to urge Al-Sadr to end conflict

US troops and Shi’ite militiamen battled in the holy Iraqi city of Najaf on Monday, just hours after political and religious leaders in...

US troops and Shi’ite militiamen battled in the holy Iraqi city of Najaf on Monday, just hours after political and religious leaders in Baghdad agreed to make a last-ditch appeal for peace.

Broadening their uprising from the urban battlefield in Najaf and seven other cities, the Mehdi Army of radical cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr set an oil well on fire in southern Iraq, the government said.

Iraqis meeting to pick an interim national Assembly in Baghdad said they would send a delegation to Najaf to try to convince Sadr to end a conflict that has killed hundreds and undermined the authority of PM Iyad Allawi.

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Last minute hiccups with transport delayed departure of the delegation to Tuesday morning, officials said.

In the heart of Najaf, US forces backed by tanks exchanged fire with militiamen entrenched around the sacred Imam Ali Mosque and an ancient cemetery. Explosions boomed and the crackle of machinegun fire echoed across the city, 160 km south of Baghdad.

The move to send the delegation came after the Najaf unrest again dominated the meeting in Baghdad where 1,300 political and religious leaders will select a 100-member Assembly to oversee Allawi’s interim government until elections in January. Despite the apparent pro-government stance of the delegation, the three-day conference has exposed deep divisions in Iraq over Najaf, with many delegates upset that US forces are fighting so close to Shi’ite Islam’s holiest site.

Some have threatened to quit an event already beset by boycotts from players such as Al-Sadr and other religious groups. The Interim Assembly is due to be chosen on Tuesday.

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‘‘We will deliver this urgent call from the national conference to Moqtada Al-Sadr … to try to solve this problem at its roots,’’ said senior delegate Hussein Al-Sadr, a distant relative but a political opponent of the firebrand cleric. The cleric would meet the delegation, an aide said.

Fighting also raged between American soldiers and the Mehdi Army in Al-Sadr City, Baghdad’s Shi’ite slum, where gunmen exploded a bomb under a US tank and then set it on fire. The crew escaped with minor wounds, a US Army spokesman said.

A French journalist holding a US passport has been seized in Nassiriya, Al Jazeera television reported. The Interior Ministry said it was checking reports that journalist Micah Jaren and his Iraqi translator were missing.

In violence elsewhere in Iraq, gunmen killed the commander of the Iraqi National Guard and four bodyguards in Samarra on Monday, a police spokesman said. —(Reuters)