U.S. To Enter Flashpoint Cities

U.S. troops will likely enter parts of Najaf soon in a move to clamp down on the rebel militia of a radical Shiite cleric but will stay away from sensitive holy sites in the center of the city to avoid rousing the anger of Shiites, a U.S general said Sunday.

U.S. and Iraqi forces will also begin joint foot patrols in Fallujah, in an attempt to take control of the city without launching a bloody all-out assault. The Marines have warned an attack is imminent if insurgents don't hand in all their heavy weapons, part of a peace deal brokered last weekend.

The Americans continue to face a dilemma - when they use their superior firepower, they anger more Iraqis and swell the ranks of their enemies. When they try to get Iraqis to take the lead, they've found them unable -or unwilling - to stop the killing, reports CBS News Correspondent Kimberly Dozier

Shiite leaders have warned of a possible explosion of anger among the country's Shiite majority if U.S. troops enter Najaf, and until now U.S. commanders have been saying troops would not go in.

Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling did not say when troops would move in, or how many.

Iraqi negotiator Hachim al-Hassani says Fallujah residents have promised no attacks on the U.S. foot patrols will take place. But U.S. officials have questioned whether Fallujah civic leaders who have been negotiating with the Americans have enough influence with the city's guerrillas. Guerrillas have not been abiding by a previous call from the civil leaders to surrender their heavy weapons, U.S. commanders say.

Violence across the country flared Saturday, killing 33 Iraqis in various attacks and four U.S. soldiers whose base was hit by two rockets north of Baghdad.

On Sunday, a rocket hit near a hospital in the northern city of Mosul, killing three people — including two women working at the hospital — doctors said. Elsewhere the city, a mortar hit a residential area, killing one Iraqi.

In Baghdad, a roadside bomb hit a U.S. military convoy in an eastern neighborhood, setting a Humvee on fire. Witnesses reported U.S. casualties, but there was no immediate confirmation from the military.

Meanwhile, U.S. military officials in the Gulf were trying to determine the launching point of an unprecedented suicide boat attack on two offshore oil terminals that are the sole outlet of Iraqi crude from the south. The attacks, using explosive-packed dhows, killed two U.S. Navy sailors and forced the shutdown of the two terminals for several hours.

Asked if the attackers came from inside Iraq or neighboring Iran or Kuwait, Navy Commander James Graybeal, of the U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, said, "That's what were trying to determine."

Insurgents often attack oil pipelines in Iraq and have repeatedly shut down exports from northern oil fields to Turkey.

Saturday's bombings were the first such maritime attack on the industry and appeared to be a new tactic in the Iraqi conflict — resembling al Qaeda-linked attacks in 2000 and 2002 against the USS Cole and a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen that killed 17 American sailors and a tanker crewman.

The bombings targeting the key oil industry has forced the closure of Iraq's biggest terminal, losing the country nearly 1 million barrels a day in exports, the oil minister said Sunday.

Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulloum told reporters that the Al-Basra Oil Terminal remains closed since Saturday evening's attacks and will open on Monday at the soonest.

The Al-Basra terminal was one of two terminals targeted in the attacks. The other, smaller terminal, Khawr al-Amaya, reopened Sunday morning.

The Al-Basra terminal unloads up to 900,000 barrels a day of Iraq's total current exports of around 1.6 million barrels per day, he said. He would not say how much that production was worth. Bahr al-Ulloum corrected earlier reports that the Al-Basra terminal had reopened.

The new steps in Najaf and Fallujah came after President Bush held a conference call Saturday with his top commander in the Middle East, Gen. John Abizaid, over the situation in Iraq.

U.S. commanders have been threatening a full-scale offensive to take Fallujah and uproot insurgents unless guerrillas hand over their heavy weapons within days.

But a new assault would revive bloody fighting that killed hundreds of Iraqis this month, helped set off a surge of guerrilla attacks across the country that killed at least 109 U.S. troops killed in Iraq since the beginning of April — the deadliest period ever in Iraq for the Americans.

The Fallujah siege also fueled anti-U.S. sentiment, rallying the Sunni minority and angering even U.S. allies among the Iraqi leadership.

Al-Hassani told The Associated Press that joint U.S.-Iraqi patrols would begin in the city on Tuesday, when orders will be issued forbidding Fallujah residents from carrying weapons in the streets.

He said 75 families who fled Fallujah during the fighting will be allowed to return on Sunday. "If things go well, all families will be allowed to return," he said. Nearly a third of the city's 200,000 residents fled the city since the siege began on April 5.

The attempt to have guerrillas hand over their heavy weapons will continue, he said. So far, insurgents have only turned in a small number of weapons, most of them rusted, broken or otherwise unusable, U.S. commanders have said.

The new U.S. intention to move into parts of Najaf also carried heavy risks

"We probably will go into the central part of the city. Will we interfere in the religious institutions? Absolutely not," Hertling, a deputy commander of the 1st Armored Division, told reporters outside Najaf.

He did not say when the move would occur, but it appeared unlikely for several days.

Hertling said the move aimed to tighten the clampdown on radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his militia.

"It's not going to be large-scale fighting, the likes of other places, but it's going to be critical," he said. "We're going to drive this guy into the dirt."

"Either he tells his militia to put down their arms, form a political party and fight with ideas not guns — or he's going to find a lot of them killed," he said.

Also, an Army reservist missing in Iraq since a convoy attack April 9 was confirmed dead. The remains of Sgt. Elmer Krause, 40, were found Friday, according to a statement Saturday from the Department of Defense. It gave no other details. Another soldier and a U.S. contract worker abducted in the same attack remain unaccounted for.

The latest deaths brought to 109 the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq since the beginning of April. At least 718 servicemembers have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.

Anywhere from 900 to 1,200 Iraqis have been killed in April — depending on various reports of the death toll from Fallujah.