Polish Troops in Kerbala Skirmish

Polish troops reportedly killed a leader of the Shia uprising in the Iraqi city of Kerbala today, as the military commander of the US-led coalition vowed to "destroy" the militia loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

An Iraqi police spokesman told Reuters that Murtada al-Mussawi, who ran Mr Sadr's Kerbala office, was killed in fighting with Polish troops in the centre of the city. Mourners carried away his body, chanting "Today we will free Kerbala from the Jews", according to witnesses.

There was no immediate comment from Polish forces, who head a multinational division in the area, but the report will come as a relief to coalition forces. They have been engaged in bitter battles with the Shia militia - known as the Mahdi Army - and Sunni insurgents across southern and central Iraq since Sunday.

Also today, a top aide to Mr Sadr said his supporters had captured a number of soldiers from the US-led coalition. "Some tribes have captured some occupation forces on the streets," Qays al-Khazali told a news conference in the Shia Muslim holy city of Najaf.

He gave no further details. The news conference was broadcast by Lebanon's al-Manar television station, mouthpiece of the Hizbullah group. There was no immediate comment on the report from the command of US-led forces in Baghdad.

The deputy director for coalition operations, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, said: "We will attack to destroy the al-Mahdi Army. Those attacks will be deliberate, precise and they will be successful."

He said US forces were operating to hunt down members of the militia in the mainly Shia district of Sadr City in Baghdad, and he called on Mr Sadr to surrender. "If he wants to calm the situation ... he can turn himself in to a local Iraqi police station and he can face justice," Gen Kimmitt said.

He said Mr Sadr's forces - along with Sunni guerrillas who have opposed US forces for months - are waging violence to disrupt the June 30 handover of power from the Americans to an Iraqi government.

"All the Iraqi people that are watching this understand this. It all comes down to extremism versus moderation," Gen Kimmitt said.

"The extremists want to ... take this country back to an authoritarian regime or even worse ... some sort of Talibanisation of this country," he added, referring to the tyrannical Islamist regime the US ousted from power in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, fierce fighting continued today between coalition troops and insurgents on two fronts. While the Mahdi Army attacked coalition forces in the south, US Marines were besieging Falluja, west of Baghdad, to uproot Sunni Muslim insurgents.

An estimated 60 Iraqis and up to 12 marines have been killed in the fighting in Falluja since yesterday, according to the latest reports from the local hospital and coalition sources. A total of 33 coalition troops and 170 Iraqis have been killed in the last three days of fighting.