01 June 2004	Tuesday	12 Rabi-us-Saani 1425

KUFA, May 31: About 20 insurgents, two US soldiers and an Iraqi mother were killed in overnight clashes near this Shia city as tension flared again between US troops and radical cleric Moqtada Sadr despite a five-day truce.

Commenting on an Arab television report that 20 of Sadr's militiamen were killed in the violence, a coalition official replied: "I think that number is close to being correct". But Sadr's office said only two militiamen were killed and three wounded.

The US military said its soldiers were killed in separate clashes near Kufa, where US-led coalition forces and Sadr's Mehdi Army militia have been locked in regular battles since the cleric staged an uprising two months ago.

A 40-year-old Iraqi woman, Hamida Abbas Awda, was killed and three of her four children wounded when the family home was destroyed in the fighting, said an AFP photographer. Her body lay wrapped in white cloth early Monday outside the rubble of her home as wailing and weeping relatives gathered around.

Seven other Iraqis were also wounded in the fighting, two of them seriously, said a doctor in the city, which is considered a Sadr stronghold. The injuries prompted accusations from locals that the US military was using random and excessive fire power against the Mehdi Army.

Sadr's main spokesman, Sheikh Qais al-Khazali, insisted only two fighters were killed and three wounded. "Each time we give a toll, it is vouched for by a medical source," he said, but there was no immediate independent confirmation from hospitals.

Hundreds of militiamen have been killed in weeks of clashes, but coalition officials say it is "unhelpful" to give a precise breakdown on losses. "Two Task Force 1st Armoured Division soldiers died in separate engagements south of Kufa the evening of May 30," the US army said in a statement.

"One soldier was killed when his patrol was ambushed with small arms fire and the other was killed when a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) struck his tank during a patrol," it added.

The Americans have battled the Mehdi insurgency since April around Baghdad and southern Iraq, particularly Kufa and the neighbouring shrine city of Najaf. The sides agreed to a tentative truce last Wednesday, but Kufa has been jolted by violence every day since the deal was struck.

A third 1st Armoured Division soldier was killed south of Baghdad and two wounded by a roadside bomb Sunday, but it was not clear if this occurred around Najaf, the epicentre of the battle between US troops and Sadr.

More than 800 US soldiers have died since the start of the US-led invasion in March 2003, according to a tally based on Pentagon figures. Of those, 592 have been killed in action. During the fighting on Sunday night, shrapnel damaged the wall of Kufa's grand mosque, where Sadr regularly delivers his anti-US sermon every Friday. The militia has a make-shift command post inside the mosque. -AFP