IRAQ Battle rages outside Najaf

A Marine died in an attack in Fallujah after a cease-fire there was extended.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- U.S. troops backed by helicopter gunships battled with insurgents overnight near the southern holy Shiite city of Najaf, killing 43 gunmen and destroying an anti-aircraft system belonging to the insurgents, the U.S. military in Baghdad said today.
The fighting began Monday night and lasted several hours, a military spokesman said. It came as around 200 U.S. forces made their first deployment inside Najaf, moving into a base that Spanish troops are vacating about three miles from holy shrines near where an anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric is holed up.
Night footage taken by the Associated Press Television News, from a road between Najaf and the nearby town of Kufa, showed U.S. army helicopters flying low over plumes of smoke rising from a green area and the sparks of flashes, likely from gunfire.
Capturing al-Sadr
U.S. commanders have said they will not move against the shrines to capture cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose armed supporters have launched attacks against the U.S.-led forces.
Attempts to capture al-Sadr have been put on hold while negotiators try to resolve the standoff. The Americans say they're aware that moving against the shrines could turn the cleric's limited revolt into a wider anti-U.S. uprising by Iraq's Shiite majority.
The U.S. military spokesman didn't give any more details of the fighting, besides saying the 43 insurgents were killed and anti-aircraft system destroyed.
Attack in Fallujah
Earlier Monday, U.S. troops came under a heavy insurgent attack in Fallujah a day after U.S. officials decided to extend a cease-fire rather than launch a full-scale offensive on that city. Eight suspected insurgents and one U.S. Marine were killed.
U.S. Marines battled Sunni guerrillas around a mosque in Fallujah's Jolan district, a poor neighborhood where insurgents are concentrated. U.S. helicopter gunships joined the battle, which sent heavy black smoke over the city. Tank fire demolished a minaret from which U.S. officials said gunmen were firing.
The U.S. troops met "a real nasty bunch," said Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, commander of the U.S. military's 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. But he said the violence would not deter plans to begin joint U.S.-Iraq patrols in the city.
The patrols are a key part of the U.S. effort to establish a semblance of control over Fallujah without a wider assault, which would revive the bloody warfare seen earlier this month. The United States decided to try the patrols after President Bush consulted with his commanders over the weekend, and the cease-fire was extended in part to allow for patrols to be organized.
Political solution
The fighting in Fallujah was the latest violence to shake a two-week-old cease-fire. Still, U.S. officials said they wanted to press forward with a political track, a day after abruptly toning down threats to launch a full-out assault on the city.
"We will take the time necessary to see if there is not a political solution," Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday. "But as you saw today, when our soldiers and our Marines are attacked, they will respond and they will respond with force to protect themselves."
Baghdad raid
Meanwhile, a workshop in Baghdad, believed to be producing chemical munitions, exploded in flames moments after U.S. troops broke in to search it Monday. Two American soldiers were killed and five wounded. Jubilant Iraqis swarmed over the Americans' charred humvees, waving looted machine guns, a bandolier and a helmet.
U.S. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt did not say what sort of chemical agents were suspected of being supplied to insurgents from the Baghdad warehouse. After the blast Monday, there was no sign of precautions against chemicals.
"Chemical munitions could mean any number of things," including smoke grenades, he said.
The cause of the blast was unclear. Kimmitt said a large number of explosives were in the building, located in the northern neighborhood of Waziriyah.
Asked about reports that the search team included members of the Iraq Survey Group -- the U.S. team looking for weapons of mass destruction -- Kimmitt said only: "The inspection was by a number of coalition forces."
The blast leveled the front half of the one-story building and set ablaze four U.S. humvees parked outside. A U.S. soldier was taken away on a stretcher, her chest and face severely burned.
Weapons in mosques
In Baghdad, the top American administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, heightened warnings about the reported stockpiling of weapons in "mosques, shrines and schools" in Najaf -- and his spokesman noted that such actions make the sites fair targets for military action.
"The coalition certainly will not tolerate this situation," Bremer said in a statement addressed to residents of Najaf. "The restoration of these holy places to calm places of worship must begin immediately."
Bremer's spokesman, Dan Senor, would not elaborate on steps the coalition was ready to take to do so. He noted that in the case of military action, "those places of worship are not protected under the Geneva Convention" if they are used to store weapons.
U.S. deaths
The deaths of the two soldiers in Baghdad and the Marine in Fallujah brought to 114 the number of U.S. troops killed in combat so far this month -- nearly as many as the 115 Americans killed during the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein a year ago.
The golden domes of the Shiite shrines at Najaf's center were visible from inside the compound. Spanish troops are due to leave within days, and the Americans moved in to ensure the site was not left empty for al-Sadr militiamen to overrun.