NAJAF, Iraq — One of the most sacred shrines of Shia Islam suffered minor damage during clashes Tuesday between U.S. forces and militiamen that killed at least 13 Iraqis, some of them civilians.
The U.S. military said Shiite militiamen may have caused the damage themselves to raise anti-U.S. anger. However, militiamen blamed U.S. fire.
In Baghdad, a car bomb wounded at least five Iraqis, including a 10-year-old boy, the U.S. military said. Police said they believed the bomb may have targeted the nearby Australian Embassy, and that it detonated prematurely.
U.S. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber. The Australian government, which has some 850 military personnel in and around Iraq, said its troops were investigating.
Later Tuesday, insurgents fired rockets from an apartment house toward a police station in central Baghdad, triggering huge explosions and wounding one American soldier, witnesses and officials said.
Kimmitt also announced a larger than expected release of prisoners this week from Abu Ghraib, the prison at the center of an international scandal over detainee abuse by U.S. soldiers.
Up to 600 prisoners will be freed Friday, up from the 400 he had previously announced for that day, he said.
U.S. commanders said earlier this month that the prison's population — then around 4,000 — would be cut in half through releases and transfers. Overcrowding has been a problem at the facility, and many have complained that detainees were kept long after it was shown they were not involved in anti-U.S. violence.
After the fighting in Najaf eased, people gathered at the Imam Ali shrine to look at the damage. The inner gate of the shrine, leading into the tomb of Imam Ali Ibn Abu Talib, appeared to have been hit by a projectile. Debris was scattered on the ground.
Al-Jazeera television showed a torn veil covering the gate, and damage on the wall around it. It also showed several injured people lying on the floor of the mosque compound, and an angry crowd of more than 100 others shouting and shaking their fists.
It was the second time this month the shrine was damaged in fighting. Supporters of Shiite militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr accused the Americans firing mortars at the mosque, and said 12 people were injured in the mosque compound.
In Baghdad, Kimmitt denied the damage was from U.S. fire and said al-Sadr's forces may have committed the damage "to try to provoke outrage so they could blame it on the coalition forces."
Another projectile landed outside the shrine, about 10 yards away from the outer wall. Three militiamen were injured in that attack, and three fighters were killed in fighting in the city, al-Sadr's office said.
Imam Ali was the Prophet Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law and he is the most revered saint among Shiite Muslims.
Fighting in Najaf and other Shiite shrine cities south of Baghdad have raised alarm among Shiite Muslims throughout the world who fear damage to the sacred sites.
U.S. officials say they have been careful to avoid damaging the shrines and have accused al-Sadr of using holy places to store weapons and seek sanctuary.
Al-Sadr launched his uprising in early April after the U.S.-led occupation authority cracked down on him, closing his newspaper, arresting a key aide and announcing a warrant against the young cleric in the 2003 murder of a moderate religious leader.
Sheik Ali Salman, Shiite political leader in Bahrain, said the fighting near the holy sites "angers and enrages" Muslims in general and Shiites in particular. Salman said U.S. credibility has been suffering in the region, adding that America "dragged al-Sadr into a fight primarily to clear Iraq of any other military force before handing over authority" to a new Iraqi government.
Adel Al-Abbasi, a Shiite human rights activist, said violating the holy sites is "a red line" for Shiites. But he noted the Americans have stayed out of those sites for the past year, raising the possibility that al-Sadr is to blame for having "pushed the Americans toward the shrines."
The latest violence come after President Bush said in a speech Monday night that the United States would stay in Iraq until it was democratic and a long-awaited U.S.-British blueprint for a post-occupation Iraqi government was present to the U.N. Security Council.
Iraqi Defense Minister Ali Allawi said he expects the country's security forces to be ready to take over duties from foreign soldiers within a year.
"The timing of a presence of a multinational force, it is a question of months rather than years," Allawi said at a news conference in London with his British counterpart, Geoff Hoon. "The multinational force will need to be replaced by an indigenous force, an Iraqi force, in the course of a year."
Prime Minister Tony Blair said the new Iraqi government would have the authority to veto major coalition military operations, such as April's American offensive in Fallujah.
"If there is a political decision as to whether you go into a place like Fallujah in a particular way, that has to be done with the consent of the Iraqi government," Blair said.
The fighting in Najaf was some of the fiercest since battles erupted there last month.
Explosions and gunfire were heard around the city's Revolution of 1920 Square and the cemetery, a warren of paths and tombs offering many hiding places for rebels armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
Eight people were killed and 18 injured in Najaf in fighting, said Seyed Kifah Shemal, an official at Hakim General Hospital. Two people died and 14 were injured in overnight fighting in Kufa, said Riyadh Kadhem, a nurse at the Forat al-Awsat hospital in Kufa. They said the casualties were mostly civilians.
There were no reports of U.S. casualties.
Also Tuesday, a Turkish official said a bomb stopped the flow of Iraqi oil to a key export terminal in Turkey, cutting Iraq's export capacity by some 400,000 barrels per day. The explosion Monday damaged parts of a twin pipeline from Iraqi oil fields near the northern city of Kirkuk to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, the Turkish official said on condition of anonymity.
Iraq's total exports have averaged about 1.65 million barrels per day recently.