Iraq cleric vows fight to death vs. US

A radical Shiite cleric vowed to fight to the death as his loyalists battled U.S. troops for a fifth straight day Monday, and bombings in Sunni regions outside Baghdad ¡ª including a failed attempt to assassinate a deputy governor ¡ª killed at least 10 Iraqis.

The fighting with Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia began to have economic fallout. Iraq's southern oil company stopped pumping oil to the southern city of Basra ¡ª where militiamen were controlling main streets ¡ª because of threats to infrastructure, an official with the company said.

About 1.8 million barrels per day, or 90 percent of Iraq's exports, move through Basra, and any shutdown in the flow of Iraq's main money earner would badly hamper reconstruction efforts.

Explosions and gunfire were heard throughout the holy Shiite city of Najaf, south of the capital, the main scene of fighting between U.S. troops and the militiamen. As U.S. helicopters hovered overhead, troops tried to drive militiamen from a vast cemetery they have used as a base, and a U.S. tank rolled within 400 yards of Najaf's holiest site.

Seven militants were killed since Sunday evening in Najaf, an al-Sadr official said.

A senior U.S. military official in Baghdad estimated Monday that 360 insurgents died in Najaf in the first four days of the battle, although al-Sadr's militia insists the toll has been far lower.

Five U.S. troops have been killed in Najaf, according to the military, and the U.S. official said 19 had been wounded. Najaf police chief Brig. Ghalib al-Jazaari said about 20 police have been killed in the violence since Thursday.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have been trying to rein in al-Sadr to prevent the current violence from expanding on the scale of a widespread revolt his militia launched in April, fighting for two months until a series of truces brought a relative calm.

Al-Sadr on Monday vowed to keep up the battle, rejecting calls a day earlier from interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi for the militiamen to stop fighting.

"I will continue fighting," al-Sadr told reporters. "I will remain in Najaf city until the last drop of my blood has been spilled."

"Resistance will continue and increase day by day," he said. "Our demand is for the American occupation to get out of Iraq. We want an independent, democratic, free country."

Source: CD/Agencies