Clashes Engulf Center of Baqubah

A crowd of about 40 men gathered on the corner near the thickening traffic on Orange Circle, just beyond the immobilized car. Every few minutes, one or two rifle shots sounded.

"Drink water, guys, drink water!" Evans yelled, as the heat, which would push above 115 degrees in the next few hours, took hold. "Looks like it's going to be a long day."

From a rooftop one floor below, Sgt. Brett Granrose, 25, from Stillwater, Okla., stared through the scope of his M-4 rifle and saw increasing activity around the car, which sat 250 yards away with two of its doors open. Backed-up traffic began to eddy around it, frustrating Evans and emboldening one of the men behind the banner. Slowly, the man moved toward the car.

"If he touches that car, shoot it," Evans yelled to Granrose. A minute later, Granrose squeezed the trigger, and a shot cracked down the avenue. The man fled.

Soon afterward, the strains of the muezzin's call rang out from the minaret loudspeakers. Evans checked his watch. It was 10 a.m.

"The prayer guy is starting early today," he said. He keyed his radio, calling for an interpreter to come up to the roof and translate the message. Before one arrived, the crackle of small-arms fire sounded from less than a block away.

"We have gunshots, south gate," Evans said into the radio. Then, to no one in particular, "They just picked it up for some reason."

Just as quickly, the popcorn pop of small-arms fire gave way to long, thudding bursts from heavy machine guns. Grenade explosions thumped in long staccato strings.

"Be advised the Blue Dome is getting rocked," Evans announced into the radio. "Seems like the action is moving in our direction, so be ready. We're looking northwest, moving our direction."

Suddenly, the world below was in motion. Crowds ran down the avenue past Orange Circle, empty of the traffic that had clogged it minutes before. Only the muezzin and gunfire interrupted the hush that had fallen over the city of 250,000 people.

"Light it up, baby!" Evans shouted above the din. His men cheered as a column of Bradley Fighting Vehicles rumbled past toward the palm grove. The small-arms fire moved to within 50 yards of the occupation complex, directed at the police station.

At the start of the day's fighting, Col. Dana Pittard, the brigade commander, had met with the city's police chiefs, who pleaded for heavier weapons to repel the attack.

"We're going to arm them," said Pittard, who would provide machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. "They want to fight, which is something we did not see in April" when the police fled in the face of a similar uprising.

Pittard also said he received reports that Iraqi civilians, carrying AK-47s permitted under occupation regulations for protection of homes, had begun pursuing the insurgents on their own. According to one report, a group of them ran into the palm grove, a favorite insurgent staging area, amid heavy firing on the Blue Dome.