Naseer Al-Nahr, Arab News

BAGHDAD, 24 May 2004 — Coalition troops killed dozens of fighters belonging to Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr’s militia as two US soldiers died in an attack in the flashpoint town of Fallujah yesterday.

At least 32 Shiite fighters were killed in the central Iraqi city of Kufa, including 20 in a mosque compound, the US military said.

A coalition spokesman said all those slain in the mosque were militiamen loyal to Sadr.

“Tanks crashed through the gates of the mosque compound during the night and soldiers entered while helicopters hovered overhead,” said Hussein Yasser, 32, who lives near the Selah Mosque where the fighting took place. The clashes lasted for about one hour, he added.

Bloodstains were seen on the ground of the mosque compound, along with spent cartridges and the prints of tank tracks, while the walls were riddled with bullet strikes.

The US military insisted its troops did not enter the mosque, but that an Iraqi counterterrorism unit had raided the building, confiscating a cache of weapons.

“We have no intention of entering the shrines,” said Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who commands the 1st AD, but he stressed Iraqi forces would enter holy places if necessary.

Earlier, doctors said 54 wounded people had been taken to two hospitals in the city, but the US military said there were no reports of coalition casualties.

Ten of the dead and 11 wounded were taken to the Furat Al-Awsat Hospital in Kufa, said official Mohammed Abdel Kazem.

In Fallujah, Iraqis killed two US soldiers and wounded five others in an ambush that involved a bomb and rocket-propelled grenades.

Soldiers at the scene said a vehicle apparently loaded with explosives blew up as convoy of US Marines and Army personnel passed by, and that assailants then opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades from a grove of palm trees.

The attack was the first major loss inflicted on US troops in the area since the end of an offensive they launched in Fallujah last month after four US contractors were killed and their bodies mutilated in the city.

Meanwhile, the US Army dismissed a report in the Washington Post yesterday that suggested the US commander in overall charge in Iraq was present during the abuse of some of the detainees at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison.

A lawyer for a soldier charged in the scandal was quoted by the paper as saying he had heard Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez was at the jail during some “interrogations “.

But a statement issued in Baghdad said suggestions Sanchez was “aware of, and in some instances, present at Abu Ghraib while detainee abuse was occurring” were false.

“This report is false, and... Sanchez stands by his testimony before congressional committees,” it said.