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3 clerics shot dead in Iraq

GI, 4 Iraqi troops die in separate attacks

AP, Reuters, Baghdad
Gunmen killed a Shia Muslim cleric yesterday while two missing Sunni clerics were found shot dead, police said. US troops clashed with militants in Mosul, according to reporter on the scene.
The cleric killings threaten to increase sectarian tensions in Iraq a day after Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari vowed to crack down on anyone targeting Shias and Sunnis. His threat came amid a spree of violence that has killed more than 450 people since his government was announced April 28.
Insurgents killed four Iraqi soldiers in clashes outside a power plant in a southern Iraqi town yesterday, army sources said.
The attack in Mussayib was part of an escalated campaign of suicide bombings and shootings by guerrillas that has pressured the new government to deliver on promises of improved security.
US troops and militants clashed in the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday, with heavy exchanges machine gun fire being heard, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene.
US forces were seen advancing into the eastern neighborhood of Dhubbat, a known insurgent stronghold in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.
Heavy machine gun exchanges took place in the area between militants and US forces, said the AP reporter who witnessed the clashes from the rooftop of a nearby home. American helicopters were also seen circling overhead.
It was unclear what sparked the clashes or if there were any casualties.
Efforts to contact American forces in Mosul were not immediately successful; the US military in Baghdad said it was not aware of any ongoing operation in Mosul.
Elsewhere, a roadside bomb blast yesterday killed one US soldier and wounded another near Tikrit, north of Baghdad, the military said.
Shia cleric Sheik Mouwaffaq al-Husseini was shot in a drive-by shooting by unknown gunmen while driving in Baghdad's western Jihad neighborhood, police Capt. Taleb Thamer said.
Two Sunni clerics were found shot dead after being kidnapped by
men Sunday from different mosques in Baghdad's northern neighborhood of Shaab by men wearing Iraqi army uniforms, a senior police official said on condition of anonymity.
Shaab, a Shia dominated area, was also where six bodies were found late Sunday near a dam. Two other victims were found alive but died later in the hospital. They were among the bodies of 50 men slain and dumped in various locations across Iraq.
Sheik Hamed al-Khazraji, a spokesman from the Sunni Muslim Association of Muslim Scholars, identified the two slain clerics as Sheik Hassan al-Naimi and Sheik Talal Nayef and confirmed the circumstances of their kidnappings.
Al-Naimi's body was found Tuesday and Nayef's on Monday, police and al-Khazraji said. The locations were their bodies were found were not immediately known.
An Associated Press photographer saw al-Naimi's relatives preparing documents to retrieve his body from Baghdad's coroner's office, where it was taken.
Attacks among Sunnis and Shias have become common in the past weeks amid fears of violence between the two groups. Dozens of bodies of people from both sects were found in different areas around Baghdad.
Shia cleric Qassim al-Gharawi died in a drive-by shooting in western Baghdad last week. Quraish Abdul Jabbar, a Sunni cleric, was reported shot dead and his body dumped behind a mosque in northeastern Baghdad on Monday.
During a Monday meeting with Iraq's top Shia religious leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, al-Jaafari said his new government "will strike against any criminal who tries to harm a Sunni or a Shia citizen with an iron fist."
Al-Sistani also stressed the need for "fighting terrorism and guaranteeing security," but also urged his Shia followers to exercise restraint in the face of provocative attacks, his aide said on condition of anonymity.