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Heavy fighting in Najaf kills 77 more iraqis

REUTERS, AFP, Najaf
Firebrand Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr and Iraq's interim prime minister Iyad Allawi made gestures yesterday to defuse a two-week uprising in Najaf, after ferocious US air strikes and heavy fighting killed at least 77 more Iraqis.
Moqtada al-Sadr was preparing to hand control of the Imam Ali Mosque in the city to religious authorities while Allawi pledged his forces would not storm the sacred site, where the cleric's Mehdi Army has holed up.
But Sadr continued to reject one of
Allawi's key demands, to disband his Mehdi Army, a spokesman for the cleric said.
The Health Ministry said at least 77 people had been killed and 70 wounded in the past 24 hours in the southern city.
The rebellion has killed several hundred people, driven world oil prices to new highs and put Allawi on the back foot less than two months after he took over from US-led occupiers with a pledge to stabilise Iraq ahead of January elections.
"We are not going to attack the mosque, we are not going to attack
Moqtadr al-Sadr in the mosque," Allawi told BBC World Service radio, adding Sadr's militia had wired up the country's holiest Shi'ite shrine with explosives.
"The olive branch is still extended ...
We are not a warring people. On the contrary, we want a peaceful solution."
The conciliatory statements followed the most intense US bombardment of Mehdi positions since the conflict erupted.
US AC- 130 and helicopter
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gunships struck repeatedly, sending orange flashes and white sparks into the night sky. Booming explosions shook houses far from the battle zone.
The attacks eased at daybreak.
Another report says, Moqtada Sadr urged his Mehdi Army to continue fighting US and Iraqi government forces.
The militia leader's defiant call, delivered as usual via a spokesman, followed a letter circulated late Thursday in which he refused to disarm in the wake of a "final warning" to do so from Allawi.
At the same time, spokesman Sheikh Ahmed al-Shaibani said the militia was prepared to hand over control of the Imam Ali mausoleum in the heart of Najaf to the highest Shia religious authority in Iraq, but there was a catch.
"Moqtada Sadr has asked his fighters to continue the fight, " Shaibani told AFP at the shrine, which was taken over by the cleric's forces on April 5 after Sadr began his rebellion.
"The Mehdi Army is ready to leave the mausoleum and hand over the keys to the leaders of the Marjaiya, Ali Sistani and Kazem al-Haeri, but unfortunately they are not here," said Shaibani. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of Iraq's
majority Shia population, is in London following hospital treatment, while Haeri is based in the Iranian holy city of Qom.
The health ministry said 13 Iraqis were killed and 107 others wounded in Baghdad and one killed and another wounded in Basra in the same period.
It said all the casualties were from fighting pitting Shia militiamen loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr against US and government forces.
Six of those killed in Najaf were police who died in a mortar attack, it said.
Two Iraqis were killed and 11 others wounded in a double US airstrike on the Sunni Muslim bastion of Fallujah in less than 12 hours, a doctor said yesterday.
Two security guards were killed overnight and four people, including three women and a child, were wounded when the second attacks hit an ice cream factory early Friday, Khadouri added. In As Samawah two Iraqis were killed early yesterday after a shoot-out with Dutch troops stationed in the area, an army spokesman in The Hague said.
"A Dutch patrol in was fired upon from a vehicle and fired back. The vehicle subsequently had an accident and two men were found dead inside," spokesman Nico van der Zee said.