BAGHDAD, Aug 10: Hundreds of gun-toting young men controlled the streets of Baghdad's Sadr City on Tuesday as an aide to radical leader Moqtada Sadr urged Iraqis to join their war against the Americans.

Clad in black and armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades, these youthful militiamen policed Sadr's slum stronghold as his aides stepped up their rhetoric for a showdown against the US troops.

"This is a jihad for us and we are going to fight till the Americans go away," said 18-year-old Abdul Jabbar, one of many youths guarding the main Al Falah street, which runs through Moqtada Sadr's bastion in the capital.

"The (Prime Minister Iyad) Allawi government and Americans should understand what we want. They are getting killed in Najaf, they will get killed here too if they come in front of us."

As Jabbar surveyed the streets, gunshots and explosions ricocheted through the slum, virtually devoid of Iraqi police or US military presence. "They have left. They thought the curfew will control us. But we are not afraid of death. Let them (the Americans) come, we will fight them," said a young boy, a rifle slung across his thin shoulders.

Days of violence here, in tandem with heavy fighting in Najaf, has forced the Iraqi government to impose a daily curfew in Sadr City from 4pm to 8am until further notice.

"We had a fight last night and I am sure we have killed many of their people. They will not tell, but we know which is why they have now withdrawn from the area," said one of the young armed men.

A US spokesman said a military patrol was attacked repeatedly as it drove through the slum early on Tuesday, but he said there were no US casualties. Traffic in Sadr City was at a minimum as the militia guarded all key entry and exit points. Flames and smoke spewed into the air across the Shia bastion, where burnt tyres acted as road blocks.

A Sadr aide in Baghdad called on residents to stay strong and defend their homes, urging police, Iraqi security forces and guerillas to join his Mehdi Army in its "fight against the occupation".

"What is going on in Najaf and elsewhere is mass killing by the Americans and the so-called interim government," Qais al Khazali told reporters. Although militiamen made it difficult for reporters to talk to residents, any support for Sadr's cause was subordinate to a craving for basic amenities.

In one of the most depressed districts of the Iraqi capital, small children dabbled in the dirt of the gutter, while others loiter on street corners. "There is no electricity and clean water. We get power only for six hours," said 35-year-old Majid Jabbar, who drives a pick-up truck for a living.

"Imagine in this peak summer to be without power. Our children are unable to sleep at night, neither can we work properly." His friend, Sabah Jassem, vented his anger thus: "During Saddam's regime it was better, I feel. At least we knew he was a dictator. Now we are ruled by a government which ignores us." -AFP