U.S. to patrol Fallujah

FALLUJAH, Iraq — U.S. troops will begin patrols with Iraqi security forces in Fallujah, the military said yesterday, as the United States backed away from threatening an all-out assault that could deepen anti-American sentiment.

The patrols are to begin as early as tomorrow, and Fallujah officials will announce that anyone seen carrying a weapon in the city will be considered hostile, the military said.

Meanwhile, a U.S. general said troops will move into a base on the edge of the holy city of Najaf that Spanish troops will abandon on withdrawing from Iraq in the coming weeks.

But the Americans will avoid holy sites — an effort to prevent outraging Iraq’s Shi’ite majority, which has its most sacred shrine in the city and opposes any U.S. foray near such structures.

Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling said the troops aimed to “counter the forces” of radical Shi’ite cleric Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr. Coalition spokesman Dan Senor said weapons were being stockpiled in mosques and schools in Najaf. The practice must stop, he added.

The measures in Fallujah and Najaf were announced a day after President Bush held a teleconference with senior national security and military advisers to discuss the situation in Fallujah and the rest of Iraq.

The moves appeared aimed at bringing a degree of control over the cities without reigniting the intense violence that began when U.S. authorities moved on the two fronts simultaneously at the start of the month.

The United Nations’ envoy to Iraq warned yesterday that ordering U.S. troops into the two rebellious cities could lead to disaster.

“Sending the tanks hauling into a place like this is not the right thing to do, and I think the Americans know that extremely well now,” said Lakhdar Brahimi, referring to Najaf.

In an interview taped in Paris and broadcast yesterday on ABC’s “This Week,” Mr. Brahimi also urged the Bush administration to “tread carefully” in Fallujah.

“When you surround a city, you bomb the city, when people cannot go to hospital, what name do you have for that?” he asked.

“And you, if you have enemies there, this is exactly what they want you to do, to alienate more people so that more people support them rather than you.”

The deal to bring patrols into Fallujah means extending a cease-fire for at least two days, U.S. officials said. Military action in Fallujah remains an option, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said, but the warning was toned down sharply from those in the past week.

Fighting this month has killed up to 1,200 Iraqis and 111 U.S. troops, nearly as many as the 115 Americans killed during the major-combat phase that toppled Saddam Hussein a year ago.

A U.S. soldier was killed yesterday when a roadside bomb hit his patrol in eastern Baghdad. A U.S. Coast Guardsman died of wounds suffered the night before in a suicide boat attack on oil facilities that killed two Navy sailors.

Iraq’s main outlet for oil exports, the Al-Basra terminal, was damaged and won’t be able to resume loading tankers until today at the earliest, said Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulloum. The closure cost the country about 1 million barrels in exports the first day.

Mortar attacks in the northern city of Mosul killed two Iraqis outside a hotel, and an explosion outside a hospital killed two Iraqis and wounded 10, the U.S. military said.

As U.S. officials toned down recent warnings, they also spoke of progress in Fallujah. “At this point, it would not seem to be constructive for either side to be laying down ultimatums,” Gen. Kimmitt said.

Still, he said, no weapons were handed over in the past few days — not even the kind of rusted, broken or otherwise useless ones that were surrendered last week. U.S. officials have been complaining for days that guerrillas were not abiding by a call to disarm that had been issued under the agreement reached with American negotiators.

Gen. Kimmitt also said insurgents had been shooting at U.S. troops in the past 24 hours. A helicopter gunship fired on a house in Fallujah where guerrillas had been seen preparing a mortar on Friday. Twenty-five fighters were killed.

The patrols are “the first step to returning the city to a sense of stability,” Gen. Kimmitt said.