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(回答先: 米軍がサドル派民兵と衝突、「３００人殺害」（駐留米軍発表） [asahi.com] 投稿者 ひろ 日時 2004 年 8 月 07 日 01:53:28)
米軍発表はウソ：「死んだのは36人」
Najaf toll: US claims 300, fighters say 36
Friday 06 August 2004, 20:44 Makka Time, 17:44 GMT
US marines have killed an estimated 300 Shia fighters in fierce clashes around the Iraqi city of Najaf in the past two days, a senior US officer has said.
But a spokesman for Shia Muslim leader Muqtada al-Sadr denied many of his fighters had been killed.
The spokesman said 36 fighters had been killed in several Iraqi cities after clashes that have fuelled fears of a new rebellion among Iraqi Shias.
The fresh fighting, which still raged on Friday, marks a major challenge for the interim government of Prime Minister Iyad Alawi and appears to have destroyed a two-month-old ceasefire between US forces and al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.
"The number of enemy casualties is 300 KIA (killed in action)," Lieutenant Colonel Gary Johnston, operations officer for the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, said at a military base near the city, 160km south of Baghdad.
Johnston told reporters the Mahdi fighters were badly coordinated and shot at random against the heavily armed marines who were backed up by helicopter gunships and fighter planes.
"There is fighting right now. In some ways it is not as intense as yesterday," he said.
'American lies'
US military officials said there were indications that foreign fighters had joined the Mahdi Army. Criminal gangs were also involved, they said.
Asked about American casualties, Johnston said there were two dead and 12 wounded from the two days of fighting.
The US-appointed governor of Najaf put the death toll among Shia fighters at 400, with 1000 captured. He said he had information that 80 Iranians were fighting alongside al-Sadr's militia.
However, Sheikh Raed al-Qathimi, a spokesman for al-Sadr, rebuffed the American version of the death toll.
"I categorically deny these American lies," he said, before adding only 36 Shia fighters had been killed.
Meanwhile, British and Italian troops also fought the Mahdi Army across Shia-dominated southern Iraq - in Basra, Amara and Nassiriya - while fighting raged in Sadr City and Shoula, two Shia districts of Baghdad.
Tension flare-up
The Health Ministry said fighting in Sadr City alone had killed 20 Iraqis and wounded 114 since early on Thursday, while in Nassiriya six were dead and 13 wounded.
Tension has been rising in Najaf since Iraqi security forces surrounded al-Sadr's house earlier this week.
US marines recently replaced the US army in Najaf and analysts have suggested the upsurge in violence is linked to the marines taking a more aggressive approach with al-Sadr's militia.
Militiamen shot down a US helicopter as it was trying to evacuate a wounded soldier on Thursday. No one was killed, but the pilots were wounded.
Early on Friday F-16s, AC-130 gunships and helicopters patrolled the skies over Najaf, covering US troops battling resistance fighters in and around Najaf's cemetery.
Fighting also flared near Najaf's shrines, some of the holiest for Shia Muslims, and some said that gunfire had damaged the dome of the Imam Ali shrine.
The flare-up of tension with members of Iraq's Shia community comes after Shia fighters rose up across south and central Iraq in April and May.
Ayat Allah al-Sistani
In the previous uprising, hundreds of Iraqis and dozens of US troops were killed.
Yet al-Sadr, with an ardent following among poor, disaffected youths, appeared keen to stop the latest fighting.
Via another spokesman in Baghdad, he called for a resumption of a truce struck in June.
"We have no objections to entering negotiations to solve this crisis," Mahmoud al-Sudani told reporters. "As I have said in the name of Sayid al-Sadr, we want a resumption of the truce."
Ayat Allah Ali al-Sistani, the highest Shia authority in Iraq, has carefully and quietly tried to temper al-Sadr's words and actions.
But in a worrying move for his followers, al-Sistani, 73, flew to London on Friday for treatment for a heart problem, sources said.
Aljazeera + Agencies
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/40B1A9EE-08BC-47C2-937D-2E48A5845B53.htm
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