18 Killed During Iraq Protest

Four Salvadoran soldiers died and nine were wounded Sunday in clashes with protesters outside the Spanish garrison in the holy city of Najaf, the Spanish Defense Ministry said.

Hospital and military officials reported at least 14 Iraqis had died, including two soldiers, and 130 were wounded.

The clashes broke out when gunmen, apparent followers of an anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric, opened fire on the Spanish base, the ministry said in a statement.

The protesters were angered the arrest of an aide to the cleric, the ministry said.

The Salvadorans are under Spanish command as part of an international brigade that includes troops from Central America.

Salvadoran and Spanish troops inside the base returned fire in self-defense, the ministry said.

It said no Spaniards were injured.

Spain has 1,300 troops stationed in Iraq, and the Central American contingent is of a similar size.

In nearby Kufa, supporters of the cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, took over a police station and seized guns inside. No police were in the station at the time. The cleric's supporters also took over a hospital.

Two U.S. Marines died in violence in Anbar province, an enormous stretch of land reaching to the Jordanian and Syrian borders west of Baghdad that includes Fallujah, a city where four American civilians were slain on Wednesday. North of the capital, a bomb killed three members of the Iraqi security forces.

A car bomb exploded in the center of the northern city of Kirkuk, wounding at least three civilians, reports CBS News Reporter Lisa Barron.

An Iraqi officer said the car was booby trapped and the target appears to have been a U.S. convoy. U.S. troops have increased their presence in Kirkuk due to demonstrations by followers of al-Sadr.

L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq, condemned the violence, saying Iraqis have the right to freedom of expression and must express their views responsibly.

"A group of people in Najaf crossed the line and moved to violence," he said. "This will not be tolerated by the coalition, this will not be tolerated by the Iraqi people and this will not be tolerated by the Iraqi security forces," he said.

Some 5,000 people marched to the garrison of the Spanish military contingent in Najaf after hearing that Mustafa al-Yacoubi, a senior al-Sadr aide, had been detained.

Spanish troops have said they had no information on al-Yacoubi's reported detention, and said they did not take part in any such operation.

Several hundred people also demonstrated Saturday night and Sunday in the southern city of Nasiriyah, apparently protesting the reported arrest of al-Yacoubi, said Lt. Col. Pierluigi Monteduro, chief of staff of the Italian troops patrolling the region.

During the demonstration, gunmen from "local militias" traded fire with Italian forces, wounding a Carabiniere officer in the leg, Monteduro said.

In central Baghdad's Firdaus Square, hundreds of al-Sadr supporters rallied to protest al-Yaqoubi's reported arrest. Police fired warning shots, injuring at least two protesters, witnesses said.

Al-Sadr's office in Baghdad issued a statement later Sunday, calling off street protests and saying the cleric would stage a sit-in at a mosque in Kufa, where he has for months been delivering weekly sermons.

About 5,000 members of al-Sadr's self-styled militia, the al-Mahdi Army, paraded in Sadr City, a mainly Shiite district in eastern Baghdad, on Saturday.

Al-Sadr's weekly newspaper was shut by U.S. officials on March 28, prompting an angry response from his supporters.

Two U.S. Marines, both assigned to the 1st Marine Division, were killed as a result of separate "enemy action" in Anbar province on Saturday, the military said in a statement. One died the same day; the other died Sunday. The statement provided no other details.

A bomb exploded Sunday near a checkpoint in Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, that was manned by Iraqi Civil Defense Corps personnel, killing three and wounding one, workers at Samarra General Hospital said.

In the city of Baqouba, 30 miles northeast of Baghdad, a bomb exploded in the al-Rasool al-Adham Shiite mosque, damaging part of the building, but causing no casualties, said the mosque's caretaker Haider Yassin.

In southern Iraq on Sunday, rebels attacked an oil pipeline, rupturing it and setting the oil on fire, said Jamal Khalid, an official with the Southern Oil Company.

Firefighters battled the blaze. The fire will not affect oil exports, Khalid said.

The pipeline links the southern city of Basra with Faw port, on the Gulf. Rebels have repeatedly attacked oil pipelines in Iraq.