Sadr's men continue to hold shrine

An Iraqi Shiite Muslim shows mortar shrapnels fired by US forces and landed inside the Shrine of Imam Ali in the holy city of Najaf, yesterday. Insistence from a top Moqtada Sadr aide, Ali Smeisim, that the keys to Imam Ali mausoleum, one of the holiest pilgrimage sites in the world, were still firmly in the Medhi Army's possession contradicted reports from other sources that they had been delivered to Iraq's top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. A spokesman for Sistani, who is in London recovering from medical treatment, and Sadr's junior spokesman Sheikh Ahmed al-Shabani had both said the keys had been given up. PHOTO: AFP

Militiamen brandished weapons defiantly and mocked Iraq's interim government around the mosque, at the center of a confrontation with US forces that has helped drive oil prices to record highs and presented the government with is biggest crisis yet.

Holding out hope for a peaceful resolution, one of Sadr's top aides said the rebel leader wanted to hand over Iraq's holiest Shi'ite shrine to Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's most influential Shi'ite cleric, and that talks on the mosque's future were under way.

"We would like to hand over the shrine to the religious establishment which has the right to control it," Sheikh Ahmad al-Sheibani told reporters. "It is only natural that Ayatollah Sistani should accept it."

Sistani, who usually lives in Najaf, is now in Britain recovering from surgery.

But Sadr's aide later added that Sadr's militia would continue to guard the mosque after any handover, precisely the outcome that Iraq's interim government has vowed to prevent.

Sheibani said no time had been set for a handover of the mosque and called on the interim government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, which has threatened to storm the mosque, to pursue a peaceful solution to the crisis.

Hundreds of young men inside the shrine chanted slogans vilifying Allawi, who has called on them to lay down their weapons and leave the golden-domed shrine.

Sheibani said Sadr had agreed to hand over the keys to the shrine to Sistani's aides, but did not say when. Such a handover would be largely symbolic if Sadr's fighters remained in place in and around the mosque, where they have been fighting off efforts by US and Iraqi government forces to dislodge them.

The sound of explosions echoed across the holy city early on Saturday, though their causes was not clear. The blasts followed a relatively quiet night, the calm broken only sporadically by US aircraft flying overhead.

Meanwhile a senior policeman was shot dead early Saturday in the restive city of Ramadi, while three Iraqis were killed and 11 wounded in three homemade bomb explosions across the country, police and medics said.

Colonel Saad Samir al-Dulaimi, head of the crime fighting unit in the Sunni Muslim bastion of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, was gunned down as he left home at around 8:30 am (0430 GMT), said police Captain Ghassan Kadhim.

Further north, in the troubled city of Baquba, a roadside bomb exploded at about the same time, killing a peddler and wounding five dustmen, said police and medical sources.