Ukraine Soldier Dies in Iraq

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By Ghaith Abdul-Ahad
NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - Followers of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr fought pitched battles with foreign troops in Shi'ite Muslim strongholds Tuesday and vowed to pursue an uprising that has claimed more than 130 lives in three days.

The bloody clashes with Shi'ites that have raged since Sunday are a new front for U.S.-led forces already fighting an insurgency in Sunni areas and trying to pacify Iraq ahead of a June 30 handover of sovereignty to an Iraqi government.

Since Sunday the U.S. military has suffered 19 combat deaths in Iraq -- 11 of them in clashes in Shi'ite areas and six in al-Anbar province where Marines have launched a major mission to root out guerrillas in the Sunni cities of Falluja and Ramadi.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari, in London for talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said thousands more troops might be needed to maintain order.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said if commanders on the ground requested additional forces, they would be sent.

"They will decide what they need and they will get what they want," he said.

The latest reported U.S. death was a soldier killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in a Shi'ite area of Baghdad on Tuesday. A Ukrainian soldier and a Bulgarian civilian truck driver were killed in Shi'ite regions of southern Iraq.

The Ukrainian soldier was killed in a blast near the town of Kut that also wounded five others, Ukraine's defense ministry said. Bulgaria's foreign ministry said the driver was killed when a convoy of six trucks was attacked south of Nassiriya.

In Nassiriya, gun battles erupted before dawn between Italian troops and pro-Sadr militiamen who had taken control of key bridges in the town. Paola della Casa, a spokeswoman for the occupation authority in the area, said 15 Iraqis had been killed, some of them civilians but most of them militiamen.

The Italian military said 12 soldiers had been wounded.

Fighting between militiamen and security forces in Amara, in the British army area of responsibility, killed 15 Iraqis in the last 48 hours, Britain's ministry of defense said. Continued ...