Iraqis Raid Insurgents Near Shiite Holy City

"The people we were fighting were highly capable, well trained and very good at street fighting," said Capt. Muthanna Ahmed, a spokesman for the police in neighboring Babil province.

The prospect of insurgents lying in wait to attack Shiites illustrated the crisis between rival religious groups in Iraq, where extremists remain intent on undermining the religious and political order. The attack was the first large-scale battle since Iraqi forces assumed security control of the province last month and one of the deadliest Iraqi-led operations of the war. In August 2004, the U.S. military waged a three-week battle in Najaf against Shiite militiamen loyal to cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Iraqi officials said the insurgent leader on Sunday was Ahmed Hassan al-Yamani, a Shiite from Diwaniyah province in southern Iraq.

"This is an impostor Shiite," said Sheik Ali al-Najafi, the son of Bashir al-Najafi, one of the four leading Shiite religious figures in Najaf. "He is aiming at dismembering the Shiites in Iraq" and assassinating Shiite religious leaders, he said, "but God has failed him."

"These are very critical days now, because of the ceremonies of Ashura, and of course there are expectations that terrorist groups and criminals will launch attacks against the pilgrims who are trying to reach the city of Karbala," said Haithem Hasani, a media adviser for Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite political faction.

An Iraqi police official said he believed that some of the seasoned fighters in the date palm grove came from Fallujah and Ramadi, embattled towns in the western province of Anbar that are strongholds of the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq.

U.S. military officials said the operation was ongoing in Najaf, and the clatter of gunfire and drone of aircraft were heard Sunday night.

The violence continued Sunday elsewhere in Iraq. In Baghdad, mortar shells crashed down on a girls' high school, killing at least five students and wounding 13 other people, including two female teachers, according to Brig. Gen. Saad Sultan of the Interior Ministry.

Gunmen attacked a police station in the al-Wahada district of Mosul, and five of the attackers were killed in the ensuing fighting, according to Maj. Gen. Wathiq al-Hamdani, police chief of Nineveh province.

The U.S. military announced the deaths of three U.S. service members Saturday, a Marine in Anbar province and two soldiers in the Baghdad area.

Also Sunday, the Associated Press reported that two car bombs exploded in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing 11 people and wounding 34, according to a police official.

The AP also reported that the mayor of Baqubah and 1,500 police officers in Diyala province had been fired in an effort to end violence in that region northeast of Baghdad, according to the provincial police.

In the ongoing war crimes trial for the destruction of Kurdish villages in northern Iraq, deposed president Saddam Hussein's cousin said in court Sunday that he had given orders to destroy the villages in the 1980s, the AP reported.

Ali Hassan al-Majeed, known as "Chemical Ali" because he is accused of using chemical weapons during the Anfal campaign, a systematic killing of Kurds, said, "I am the one who gave orders to the army to demolish villages," the AP reported. Ali is one of six defendants facing war crimes charges.

Sarhan reported from Najaf. Special correspondents Naseer Nouri, Naseer Mehdawi and Saad al-Izzi in Baghdad and other Washington Post staff in Iraq contributed to this report.