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Battles rage around Najaf shrine

Top Shia leader back in Iraq; 4 killed in US airstrikes; 'spy' beheaded

AGENCIES, Najaf
Iraq's most influential Shia leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has returned after medical treatment in Britain as fighting continues to rage in the Shia holy city of Najaf yesterday.
As helicopter gunships clatter over Najaf and sniper fire crackles through the alleyways, US soldiers say they are forcing Shia rebels to retreat to the Imam Ali shrine.
US troops moved to within 20 metres (yards) of the gates of the shrine, an AFP reporter witnessed early yesterday.
The closest US vehicle stopped just 20 metres from the gate of the mosque compound, where Shia Muslim militiamen loyal to radical cleric Moqtada Sadr are operating.
Makeshift barricades set up to protect the entrance to the complex
were torched, and the heavy boom of artillery fire thundered out across the area as flames licked upwards into the early morning sky.
Tanks could also be seen moving about 80 metres from the gate, heading along the western side of the compound wall towards the surrounding Old City.
US fire pummelled all main roads leading from the gates into the Old
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City and only a few dared venture out, sprinting for their lives to collect basic necessities such as bread.
US Sergeant Trevor Candelan said heavy tank and machine-gun fire began at around 6:30 am and was aimed at Mehdi Army positions on Medina Street, which runs parallel to the mausoleum.
A US plane fired a missile just metres (yards) to the west of Najaf's revered Imam Ali shrine on Wednesday, shaking the mausoleum and filling it with dust, said an AFP correspondent.
SISTANI RETURNS
Sistani, 73, who underwent medical treatment in London, crossed into Iraq from the Kuwaiti border, after a senior aide said he intended to "save the city" of Najaf, where rebel cleric Moqtada Sadr's militia have been pinned around the Imam Ali mausoleum by US and Iraqi government forces.
"I have had the honour to meet and accompany Sistani, who arrived at the border at 11:00 am (0700 GMT)," said Brigadier General Ali al-Mussawi, head of Iraqi border police in Basra.
The head of Sistani's London office, Hamad al-Khaffaf, said earlier, "We call on all Iraqis ... to be ready to return to Najaf. An initiative will be announced
when we arrive in Najaf."
US AIRSTRIKES KILL 4 IN FALLUJAH Four people were killed and seven injured, as US planes and tanks pounded suspected insurgent positions in the flashpoint city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, yesterday, hospital sources in the city said.
"The bodies of four people were brought here and seven injured were admitted to the hospital," Dr Adel Ahmed, from Fallujah general hospital told AFP.
US 'SPY' BEHEADED
An Islamist website posted photos yesterday of a man it said was a US "spy" beheaded in Iraq by the Army of Ansar al-Sunna, which is linked to the al-Qaeda terror network.
"A group of mujahedeen (Islamic fighters) managed to abduct a spy called Jamal Tewfik Salman, a naturalised American since 1980, who changed his name to Khaled Abdulmassih, and who confessed to having been recruited by US intelligence in Iraq to spy on the mujahedeen," the group said on its internet site.
Five photos purporting to show the beheading were posted on the site.
(REUTERS, AFP, AP)