Shi'ite Muslims, some vowing revenge, thronged the holy city of Najaf on Monday for funerals of three men killed in a bombing that wounded a top cleric, as Washington urged patience in restoring normality to Iraq.

Thousands of people take part in the funeral of three Iraqi security guards in the city of Najaf, August 25, 2003. Three Iraqi security guards were killed in a bomb explosion Aug. 24 at the office of a senior cleric in the holy Shi'ite Muslim city of Najaf in central Iraq.   [Reuters]

Sunday's bombing underlined the problems U.S.-led forces in Iraq face in stamping out daily and deadly violence bedevilling efforts to rebuild the oil-rich country, but Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said troop levels were adequate.

Rumsfeld, who has faced calls from members of Congress for more troops to deal with the attacks, said he would not hesitate, however, to recommend President Bush boost forces if it became necessary.

The United States, which has 136,000 troops in Iraq along with 20,000 troops from Britain and other countries, blames attacks on its forces and other targets on Saddam Hussein loyalists and foreign terrorists.

Rumsfeld, speaking at a conference in San Antonio, Texas, compared the situation to Germany after World War II when allied forces came under attack from former Nazi soldiers.

"Like the death squads in Iraq, they failed to stop the liberation of Germany," he said.

Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, urged Americans not to lose patience, saying living conditions in Iraq were improving despite reports to the contrary.

"Step by step, normal life in Iraq is being reborn as basic services are restored, in some cases beyond prewar levels," Rice said. "When Americans begin a noble cause, we finish it."

SABOTAGE ON OIL INDUSTRY

But a senior U.S. official said sabotage attacks on Iraq's oilfields and pipelines were playing havoc with pricing of projects to rebuild an industry that Washington sees powering the country to success.

"Obviously the situation is evolving and every time we get something fixed in the oil sector and get it back in working order, someone tends to come along and blow it up," Michael Mele, of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, told an Iraq reconstruction conference in Washington.

U.S. officials said Washington was seeking to train up to 28,000 Iraqi police at a military base in Hungary as part of its efforts to restore law and order in Iraq. Washington wants to train and deploy 65,000 Iraqi police around the country.

Ayatollah Mohammed Saeed al-Hakim, the cleric hurt in Sunday's attack, is an uncle of the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, criticized by some Shi'ites for cooperating with the U.S.-led administration in Baghdad.

SCIRI said it was the target of the bomb, which blew a hole in the side of Hakim's office and killed three bodyguards. Some supporters blamed a rival cleric who has condemned the presence of foreign troops in Iraq.

Power struggles in Najaf are key to the future of Iraq, whose Shi'ite majority is eager for a taste of power long denied by Saddam. Many leaders returned from exile after Saddam, a Sunni Muslim, was ousted by U.S.-led forces on April 9.

Any infighting among Shi'ites is an unwelcome extra headache for U.S. forces battling to deliver Bush's vision of a peaceful democracy in Iraq.

BUSH RATINGS SLIP

Bush's approval ratings are slipping ahead of an election year when he will hope to present his Iraq campaign as a success. Sixty-four U.S. soldiers have been killed by hostile fire since Bush declared major combat over in Iraq on May 1.

In Najaf, some 90 miles south of Baghdad, many in the crowd of at least 2,000 blamed Sunday's attack on supporters of rival leader Moqtada al-Sadr. His group denied involvement.

"This was Moqtada al-Sadr. His people did it," said Muslim Raadi, 60. "Now there will be revenge.

SCIRI, led by Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, is represented on the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council, which Washington calls a first step toward democracy.

The attack took place near the Imam Ali mosque, tomb of Ali, a caliph and cousin of the Prophet Mohammed, and the most sacred Shi'ite site in Islam.

Tension between rival Shi'ite groups in Najaf has risen. A day after Saddam's fall, a mob hacked cleric Abdul Majid al-Khoei to death.

In a sign of increasing security fears, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it was cutting its Baghdad staff after last week's truck bomb which killed 23 people at the United Nations' headquarters in the city.

A statement posted on the Internet on Sunday in the name of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network claimed responsibility for the attack. The authenticity could not be verified.

"The United Nations (is against Islam), it is a branch of the American State Department," said the statement. On Thursday, an Arabic television channel reported a previously unknown Iraqi group had claimed responsibility.

Close

Today's Top News		Top International News
+Commentary: Don't meddle with yuan ( 2003-09-02) +200,000 troops to be cut by 2005 ( 2003-09-02) +Beijing Games marketing plan launched ( 2003-09-02) +Flood forces 10,0000 to evacuate ( 2003-09-02) +Beijing courts announce 50 major changes ( 2003-09-02)		+Medical Marijuana sold in the Netherlands ( 2003-09-02) +Hamas militant killed in Israeli attack ( 2003-09-02) +'Saddam' tape urges attacks on Iraq's occupiers ( 2003-09-02) +Police charge 3 in two India bombings ( 2003-09-01) +Myanmar denies opposition leader staging hunger strike ( 2003-09-01)