Najaf

At least 43 Iraqi militiamen loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shia cleric, have died in renewed fighting around Najaf, the United States military has said.

In the bloodiest fighting for several weeks, American forces destroyed militia checkpoints outside the city in overnight clashes.

An AC-130 gunship, a modified cargo plane armed with cannon and machineguns, was also brought into the battle.

Washington has demanded Sadr remove his forces and their weapons from shrines and mosques and holy sites in Najaf, but there is no sign of any truce and Sadr has threatened to mount suicide attacks if the coalition attempts to seize him.

Ghaith Abdul Ahad talks about some of the things going on inside Najaf:

I spent almost a week in Najaf, attended Friday prayers, talked to about a million clerics, watched the Mahdi army fighting and imposing their new-found authority on the people of Najaf...
.....
The "revolutionaries" are men mainly from the Baghdad slums and the poor south. They wear plastic sandals and carry pictures of Moqtada on their chests. They are armed with grenades strapped to their waists and a whole package of conspiracy theories.

There is a disturbing similarity between what these people are doing and saying and what the Ba'athists used to do and say. Since Moqtada's troops took over they have been acting thuggishly, in harmony with our great despotic traditions. I think there is something in the air that makes us yearn for a dictator to mess us around.

So the great holy fighters are manning checkpoints, detaining people and even have their own secret police. A cleric can order any of his thugs to take you to the religious court, where only Allah and Moqtada can release you.

When clashes erupted on the outskirts of the city, the new mojahedin, carrying RPG rockets without launchers and weapons looted from the Iraqi police, driving looted Iraqi police pick-up trucks and chanting "Moqtada", all rushed to the fighting. Ten minutes later, with the same war cries, they were running back. According to a senior fighter, what I was seeing was a "tactical withdrawal".

After Moqtada's Friday prayers, I went looking for my phone (phones are not allowed in the mosque for security reasons). I was waiting outside an office when I saw through a window four of the cleric's bodyguards dressing up another who was as chubby as the "leader" with a black turban and a black robe just like Moqtada's. Then they opened the door and ran outside with one guy shouting, "Long live Moqtada." While the crowd surrounded them, the real Moqtada slipped out of the mosque.

It's reassuring to see the traditions of my country still thriving: one man is given the holy right to lead the nation, while young kids with RPGs terrorise everyone.

More glorious resistance.