BAGHDAD, July 19: Thousands of Iraqi Shias rose up in anger on Saturday against the coalition forces after a cleric hostile to the US occupation claimed soldiers had besieged his home.

Fiery protests erupted in Baghdad, the Shia holy city of Najaf and the southern port of Basra where three protestors, including a cleric, were wounded when demonstrators mobbed a civilian vehicle.

The outpouring came in the name of Moqtada Sadr, the son of a charismatic Shia religious leader assassinated by agents of Saddam Hussein in 1999, who has rocketed to fame in the chaos and power vacuum of post-war Iraq.

In Basra, between 2,000 and 3,000 protestors flooded the streets and lobbed rocks at a car they believed belonged to a British civilian administrator in the port city, an AFP correspondent said.

Shots were fired and Sadr’s representative in Basra, Sheikh Ali al-Assadi, was among the three wounded, the correspondent added.

The protestors had been heading toward the British forces’ headquarters in Saddam’s former palace in Basra, which had previously welcomed the coalition and remained generally calm, in contrast to Baghdad where US troops regularly come under attack.—AFP