U.S. declines request to send in troops

10:10 AM MST on Thursday, June 10, 2004

CNN Report

NAJAF, Iraq -- After days of relative quiet, fighting flared overnight in the holy city of Najaf, Iraq, resulting in the deaths of five people.

The fighting began just before midnight Wednesday when Iraqi police attempted to arrest four suspected thieves. That led to a clash between police and Mehdi Army militia fighters loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

The militia attacked a police station in the center of Najaf with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, and at one point took control of the police station.

Although Najaf Police Chief Sayed al-Jazairi contacted the U.S. commander, asking for U.S. troops to come to his aid, the coalition soldiers were held back from the fight.

"He's got to learn how to deal with it on his own," a senior U.S. officer told CNN. "We will not get involved unless the situation gets way out of hand."

The governor of Najaf province, Adnan al-Zurufi, requested more ammunition and weapons for the Iraqi police Thursday morning and the U.S. commander agreed to send the supplies, the senior U.S. officer said.

The fighting continued for several hours near Najaf's 1920 Revolution Square, witnesses said.

U.S. military sources said five people, including two police officers, were killed.

The fighting comes after a deal was put in place in Najaf over the weekend to stop the fighting between U.S. troops and al-Sadr militia.

The agreement called for the patrol of Kufa and Najaf by Iraqi forces, the redeployment of U.S. troops to the cities' peripheries, and the withdrawal of the militia from the city centers.

On Saturday, a Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman reported a dramatic decrease in hostilities and there has been relative calm since. However, U.S. forces reserved the right to respond militarily if the need arose.

Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of the U.S. 1st Armored Division, is scheduled to visit his troops in the Najaf area on Thursday.

Pipeline attacks hurting Iraq economy

Iraq's interim prime minister Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said Thursday that his nation has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues and suffered disruptions in the electrical service and serious environmental damage because of attacks on the country's oil infrastructure.

His remarks came a day after guerrillas detonated an improvised explosive device at the main Kirkuk-Turkey oil pipeline. It was the fourth such attack at oil pipelines over a three-day period.

Referring to more than 130 attacks on Iraq's oil infrastructure in the past seven months, Allawi said: "More than $200 million have been stolen out of the pockets of the Iraqi sovereign government through the loss of oil revenues resulting from attacks to pipelines.

"Attacks on our electrical infrastructure have caused a nationwide loss of power of more than four hours per day.

"It is our people who are sitting in the dark because of these cowardly and treacherous attacks, no our occupiers, " Allawi said. The attacks, he added, have "polluted our waterways and destroyed our farmlands."

Sanchez wants out of abuse probe

The U.S. commanding general in Iraq has asked to be recused from reviewing the results of an investigation into prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison.

Pentagon officials said Wednesday that Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez's request is under consideration and they are trying to identify another general to head the investigation.

Maj. Gen. George Fay is wrapping up his investigation, and he would normally send his report to Sanchez.

Other developments

President Bush said Wednesday he hopes NATO will take a bigger role in Iraq now that the United Nations has endorsed the country's interim government. Several NATO members have contributed troops individually to the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, and the alliance provides support to the Polish-led multinational division based south of Baghdad.

Lawyers representing abused Iraqi prisoners have sued two U.S. corporations hired to help the military conduct prison interrogations. The attorneys filed suit in federal court in San Diego, California, charging Titan Corp. and CACI International with engaging in a pattern of racketeering in violation of U.S. and international laws. The corporations and three employees also were accused of committing illegal abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and other Iraq detention facilities. The accused corporations issued separate statements rejecting the allegations.

An attack by insurgents caused the deaths of the six eastern European soldiers working in a de-mining operation, officials said Wednesday. Officials initially had said the deaths were caused by an accidental explosion. Three Slovaks, two Poles and one Latvian died in Tuesday's attack. The soldiers were killed near As Suwayrah, south of Baghdad.

CNN's Guy Raz and journalist Mohammed Sharif in Najaf contributed to this story.

This article courtesy of CNN.