U.S. Turns Up Pressure on Shiite Cleric's Militia

"I appeal to the fighters and mujaheddin in Karbala to stand together so that none of our shrines and holy sites are defiled," said Sadr, who compared his fight to the guerrilla resistance in the Vietnam War.

But amid the fighting, there were tentative signs of progress in negotiations aimed at easing the military standoff in the Shiite south. Shiite political leaders said Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's supreme Shiite spiritual leader who is based in Najaf, endorsed an agreement Wednesday that would disarm Sadr's militia and recognize it as a legitimate political party.

The agreement calls for Iraqi police to assume security responsibilities in Najaf and for disarming the Mahdi Army. U.S. forces would withdraw under the agreement, and a special Iraqi court would be established to try those accused of crimes committed since Sadr's arrival. The deal also calls for all "political prisoners" to be released from the U.S.-run detention system, a fresh demand in the wake of the prisoner-abuse scandal.

"We asked Sistani, and he approved of the disarmament of the army and turning it into a political or humanitarian organization," said Abdul Karim Anizzi , the representative of the Shiite Dawa party in Najaf, who attended the meeting.

U.S. officials reacted skeptically to the agreement.

"There are people talking to people around Sadr, but it is not clear whether those people are speaking for him," said a senior U.S. official familiar with the talks. "His room for maneuver is being compressed, but we have no indication that he is prepared for anything other than a forceful solution."

Sadr has been hunkered down in Najaf for more than a month. U.S. forces charge him with the April 2003 murder of the rival moderate cleric, Abdul Majid Khoei, who was stabbed to death on his return from exile in Britain. The agreement that emerged Wednesday does not specifically address Sadr's legal status.

Shiites involved in the negotiations say they expect the United States to delay any action on the arrest of Sadr until after the planned handover. Dan Senor, the chief spokesman for the U.S. occupation authority, said that any viable agreement must require Sadr to "submit to Iraqi justice."

The Najaf agreement resembles one reached this month that ended the U.S. military siege of Fallujah. U.S. Marine officers turned to a group of former Iraqi military officers to defuse an insurrection in the Sunni Muslim city west of Baghdad. The deal angered many Shiites, who account for 60 percent of the Iraqi population and suffered most under Hussein.

In recent days, U.S. military officials have said that Mahdi Army members could be tapped for a local Najaf security force if an agreement could be reached with Sadr to disarm. Sadr's aides said they were waiting for Sistani's endorsement in writing before moving ahead.

"Dissolving the Mahdi Army is in the hands of the Marjiya," Sadr said, referring to a council of Shiite clerics led by Sistani. "If the Marjiya ask me to do that, I will do it."

In Karbala, a shroud of black smoke hovered above the gold dome of the shrine of Hussein, named for the grandson of the prophet Muhammad martyred near Karbala in 680. Witnesses said fighting between insurgents and U.S. troops, members of the 1st Armored Division, ignited a row of shops.

The roads into Karbala were either blocked by U.S. and Iraqi security forces or lined with troops of the U.S.-trained Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, which checked cars entering the area. Inside the city, U.S. Army snipers and Iraqi police took up positions on the roofs of three- and four-story buildings.

Witnesses said Mahdi Army fighters occupied many nearby buildings and tried to take over hotels at strategic locations around the city. Owners and their armed helpers drove them off. U.S. soldiers would not allow anyone to approach the shrines. Witnesses said several civilians were killed by gunfire near the shrine, including some coming to pray.

"I don't think they will last very long," said Imad Ibrahim, 23, who sells sweets. "No one is giving them food. We're afraid the American Army will stop this operation before finishing them. We've suffered for a week, and we can make it two or three more days."

There was one respite from the violence, although even it was initially mistaken for an attack. The Iraqi national soccer team defeated Saudi Arabia, 3-1, on Wednesday to qualify for the Olympics for the first time. The clatter of celebratory gunfire in Baghdad, sending red tracer bullets arcing into the night sky, initially alarmed many U.S. soldiers more accustomed to shots fired in anger.

Correspondent Rajiv Chandrasekaran in Baghdad and special correspondents Saad Sarhan in Najaf and Naseer Nouri in Karbala contributed to this report.