Baghdad — Shiite Muslim militants remained in partial control of three southern Iraqi cities on Thursday, while Sunni insurgents killed a U.S. marine in fierce fighting in the central city of Fallujah.
Gunmen in the south also kidnapped three Japanese and threatened in a videotape to burn them alive if Japan does not withdraw troops from Iraq — a new tactic to pressure U.S. allies already struggling to deal with growing armed resistance to the occupation.
In the video, masked, blacked-garbed gunmen held a sword to the neck of one of the Japanese while another hostage, a woman crouched next to him, wept. Japanese officials said they saw "no reason" to withdraw.
Two Arab Israeli aid workers were also captured elsewhere in Iraq, while eight South Korean missionaries were briefly detained by gunmen. One escaped and the seven others were freed unharmed.
A U.S. Marine takes cover on a rooftop in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, Thursday. Solider have been hit with ferocious resistance in the western town (Cris Bouroncle/AFP)
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Iraq's interior minister, who leads police and security forces, resigned at the request of top U.S. administrator, Paul Bremer, in what was described as a move to maintain the balance between Sunni and Shiite factions on the U.S.-appointed governing council.
It was unclear if the resignation of Nuri al-Badran was also connected with the failure of Iraqi police to confront the insurgents coalition forces are battling on two fronts.
The U.S. military announced that three 1st Infantry Division soldiers were killed Wednesday and Thursday in various attacks by Sunni insurgents and that a fourth died from wounds received in an attack last week.
The deaths, along with the marine killed in Fallujah, brought to 40 the number of American troops killed across Iraq this week. The fighting in Fallujah, nearby Ramadi, and across the south has also left more than 460 Iraqis dead — including more than 280 in Fallujah, according to the director of the city's hospital, Rafie Al-Issawi.
The spiralling violence has thrown doubt on many of the bases of stability that U.S. administrators have spent the past year trying to build: the loyalties of Iraqi police, the capabilities of non-U.S. coalition troops and the peacefulness of the Shiite Muslim majority.
Still, U.S. administrators insist they are making both political and military progress. UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is in Iraq trying to work out how to pick an Iraqi government due to take power on June 30. And marine commanders said they were winning the fight for Fallujah.
"The mission is going particularly well. We made inroads into the city and we are driving the enemy resistance back," said marine Lt.-Col. Greg Olsen. "We're winning every firefight."
Gunmen mainly from the militia led by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have full control over the southern cities of Kut, Kufa and the central part of Najaf.
Lt.-Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. general in Iraq, said there appeared to be links "at the lowest levels" between the Shiite militia — which has been battling coalition forces in at least a half-dozen southern cities this week — and Sunni Muslim insurgents who have long fought U.S. troops in central Iraq cities such as Fallujah and Ramadi.
The insurgency has not taken hold in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, and residents of Amarah and Nasiriyah, where fatal clashes took place Tuesday, said those towns were calm on Thursday with police on the streets. Bands of Mr. al-Sadr's militiamen also were in public but without their weapons.
Ukrainian troops were forced to withdraw from their bases in Kut on Wednesday, but Gen. Sanchez said coalition forces would retake the town "imminently."
He suggested the presence of hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims in Najaf for the al-Arbaeen holy day this weekend was hampering coalition forces from moving against militiamen there.
"We are very cognizant of the religious ceremonies," he said.
Mr. Bremer warned Shiite pilgrims that they faced a "very real" threat of violence if they visit shrines in southern cities where militias have battled coalition forces for several days.
Polish and Bulgarian soldiers drove off Shiites who attacked them near the municipal hall in Karbala south of Baghdad during all-night battles, a Polish spokesman said. Coalition forces killed nine attackers and wounded about 20 others, said Lt.-Col. Robert Strzelecki.
In Fallujah, marines battled again Thursday around the Abdel-Aziz al-Samarrai mosque, which marine Capt. James Edge said insurgents were still using as a base despite a six-hour battle Wednesday to uproot them.
Capping Wednesday's battle, a U.S. helicopter fired a missile at the base of the mosque's minaret, and an F-16 dropped a laser-guided bomb at the wall, allowing marines to seize the site, Lt.-Col. Brennan Byrne said.
The Islamic Clerics Committee, located next to the mosque, supported earlier accounts by witnesses that 40 people had been killed, including "entire families." That disputed a marine statement that there were no civilian casualties.
In Baghdad, U.S. forces have been battling nightly with al-Mahdi Army militia in their main stronghold in Baghdad, the Shiite neighbourhood of Sadr City. A U.S. helicopter struck the al-Sadr office in the district before dawn Thursday, heavily damaging it and causing an unknown number of wounded.
The kidnapping of the three Japanese civilians — a male and a female aid worker and a male journalist — were a blow to Japan's Iraq policy, which has divided public opinion and raised concern that its troops could be targeted by insurgents or drawn into the fighting.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda called the abductions "unforgivable," but said they did not justify a Japanese withdrawal.
Tokyo has sent 530 troops to the southern city of Samawah, part of a planned deployment of 1,100 on a non-combat mission to purify water and help rebuild Iraq — Japan's first deployment of troops abroad since the Second World War.
According to Al-Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite TV network, the Japanese were taken in southern Iraq by a group identifying itself as the "Mujahedeen Squadrons"
The kidnappers warned Japan that it had three days to announce it would withdraw its troops or the captives would be killed.
The Israeli news media reported two Arab residents of Jerusalem — including one with a U.S. driver's licence from Georgia who works for an American aid agency — had been kidnapped Thursday by insurgents in Iraq.
An Iranian TV report, rebroadcast in Israel, showed men identifying themselves as aid workers Nabil Razouk, 30, who had the U.S. driver's licence, and Ahmed Yassin Tikati, 33.
