Radical cleric vows to continue fight against U.S. troops

NAJAF, Iraq — 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 — including a failed attempt to assassinate a deputy governor — 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 — where militiamen were controlling main streets — 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. Iraq's other outlet from the north to Turkey has been out of operation since early June, so a stoppage from Basra threatens to completely shut down the flow of Iraq's main money earner.

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, the Imam Ali Shrine.

Najaf's governor, Adnan Zurufi, gave U.S. forces permission to enter the shrine compound, which is in the militia's control, a senior U.S. military official said.

"The governor has given us approval to conduct operations in and around the shrine," the official said on condition of anonymity. "We have elected at this point not to conduct operations there, although we are prepared to do so at a moment's notice."

Seven militants were killed in Najaf since Sunday evening, an al-Sadr official said. The U.S. official estimated 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 and 19 wounded, according to the military. Najaf police chief Brig. Ghalib al-Jazaari said about 20 police have been killed in the violence since Thursday.

A British soldier was killed in fighting with militiamen in Basra on Monday, the Ministry of Defense said in London.

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.