NAJAF, Iraq — On the top floor of the "Apache Hilton" in downtown Najaf, U.S. Army sniper Paul Buki ended a 24-hour shift by collapsing into a pile of dust, bullet casings and empty military food packages.
From this penthouse perch in a half-built tourist hotel -- seized and nicknamed by U.S. troops -- the Army staff sergeant has an unobstructed view of Najaf's Old City, a historic district in Iraq's holiest city that over the last week has been transformed into a war zone.
With the gold-domed Imam Ali Mosque in the background, smoke and flames rose Tuesday from a building still burning more than 15 hours after the previous night's fighting. Two Apache helicopters swooped down through a deserted street and disappeared behind a three-story building. Mortar rounds, tank cannons and machine guns boomed and cracked throughout the day as U.S. forces battled followers of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr.
"It's been intense here," said Buki, covered in a ghostly white dust after a night spent huddled behind a brick wall, firing at militants and reporting hostile positions from his fifth-floor lookout.
In the struggle to remove Sadr's militia from the mosque, some of the most heated clashes have shifted from the cemetery where major fighting began to a neighborhood of the Old City just south of the shrine.
"We have been fighting nonstop," said Lt. Col. Jim Rainey, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, whose 800 soldiers have been battling street by street to seize control of the area south and east of the mosque.
In the cramped ancient city, hand-to-hand combat has been unavoidable.
During a raid Monday, U.S. troops swarmed into the basement of a school building now occupied by the militia. The troops were unaware that the militia was using tunnels to move in and out.
Catching each other by surprise, a 240-pound Army sergeant, a native of Samoa, and a 130-pound militia member found themselves face to face, said Maj. Tim Karcher, operations officer of the unit.
"He beat the snot out of the guy," Karcher said.
But during the fight, another militia member tossed a grenade into the basement, killing a comrade and seriously injuring the sergeant, who was evacuated for treatment.
On average, Rainey said, his troops are attacked about three dozen times a day with mortar shells, small arms and rocket-propelled grenades.
