Thousands of Iraqi Shiites march to Najaf shrine

4.00pm

NAJAF, Iraq - Thousands of Iraqi Shiites marched past pockmarked buildings and spent ammunition to Najaf's sacred Imam Ali shrine on Friday after a peace deal was reached overnight to end an uprising.

Several American military humvees drove past them, away from the shrine area as police appeared to be taking control after three weeks of fighting between the Mehdi Army militia of a rebel cleric and US marines that killed hundreds.

"We pray today that Najaf will recover. The military operations have only brought destruction," said Kassem Hameed, a 52-year-old oil worker from the southern city of Basra who came to support Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who brokered the peace deal.

Hameed and others like him walked past dozens of destroyed buildings in a city centre that only a day earlier had been infested with snipers. A few men could be seen carrying away a body that died in the fighting.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq