Najaf

U.S.-led occupation forces in this holy city have released four of seven suspects arrested in the car bombing here last month that killed more than 100 people, and they have yet to find any direct evidence linking the blast to Al Qaeda or other foreign terrorist groups, officials said Monday. The four were released because of a lack of proof against them, said Lt. Col. Chris Woodbridge, who heads the Marine battalion occupying Najaf. They were turned over to Iraqi police, Woodbridge said, but U.

Rebel cleric Muqtada Sadr's grip on Imam Ali Mosque appeared less certain late Friday after a chaotic day in which some of his fighters were captured attempting to flee this holy city and his representatives vowed to remove weapons from the shrine. Earlier in the day, Iraqi government officials had reported -- erroneously -- that Sadr's forces had been routed from the mosque.

At the center of the deadly conflict in southern Iraq between U.S. forces and anti-American cleric Muqtada Sadr stand two large mosques. Sunlight reflected off the mosques' golden domes is visible from most of the streets, small farms and ancient cemeteries of Najaf and Kufa, sister cities 100 miles south of Baghdad. All involved in the conflict agree that the mosques are important, but for very different reasons. To Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority, the mosques are holy.

U.S. officials issued an ultimatum Monday ordering a militant Shiite cleric to remove weapons from mosques, shrines and schools in Najaf, and a powerful explosion in an industrial building in Baghdad killed two GIs and wounded five. In the aftermath, gleeful teenagers cavorted atop and around several abandoned U.S. Humvees. The U.S.

Iraqi and American forces killed several hundred gunmen apparently planning to attack a Shiite Muslim shrine Sunday, fighting a daylong battle in which a U.S. helicopter crashed, killing two U.S. troops, Iraqi security officials said. The fighting near the holy city of Najaf on the eve of the Shiite holiday of Ashura came as a mortar attack killed five teenage girls at a school in Baghdad and the daily nationwide civilian death toll again climbed past 100.

Rebel cleric Muqtada Sadr vowed Monday not to leave this battle-torn city "until the last drop of my blood has been spilled," as U.S. and Iraqi forces tightened their chokehold on militants hiding out in one of Shiite Islam's most sacred shrines. Najaf Gov. Adnan Zurfi said that after five days of fighting, U.S. and Iraqi forces were in control of the city except for the area around the golden-domed Imam Ali Mosque. In an effort to improve coordination, U.S.

American forces are pursuing victory in this besieged Euphrates River city on two fronts, one conventional and the other decidedly not. On the combat front, infantry units had nearly encircled and sealed off the city by nightfall Tuesday. On the unconventional front, an armored unit was trying to punch into the city center and destroy a huge statue of Saddam Hussein, hoping to land a psychological blow.

U.S. troops withdrew from this holy city in southern Iraq on Tuesday, an initial step in the military's effort to pull back from the country's urban centers and turn over authority to Iraqi forces. Under waving Iraqi flags, U.S. commanders formally turned over control of Forward Operating Base Hotel, a square, concrete-walled American base on the edge of Najaf, a shrine city about 100 miles south of Baghdad that saw intense fighting last year.

They've destroyed the local Baath Party headquarters. They're gathering up crate after crate of captured weapons. Now, U.S. forces in this central Iraqi city revered by the world's Shiite Muslims have secured the gold-domed Ali mosque, still pristine and whole after three days of furious combat. Residents here seemed to sense Wednesday that something fundamental had shifted in their lives and that a grave threat to their religious heritage had fallen away.

In twin attacks targeting Iraq's major Shiite Muslim cities, car bombs in Najaf and Karbala killed at least 62 people Sunday and wounded 120, threatening to inflame sectarian anger as the nation prepares for next month's election. In a separate ambush in Baghdad, heavily armed militants attacked a car carrying five employees of Iraq's Independent Electoral Commission, dragging three of the workers out of the vehicle and executing them in the street in front of scores of rush-hour drivers.