BAGHDAD, Jan. 29 — The gunmen who battled Iraqi and American forces near Najaf on Sunday were members of a Shiite cult that planned to storm the city during a religious festival and kill the nation’s top Shiite clerics, Iraqi officials said today.
American and Iraqi forces battled militants for 15 hours near Najaf.
About 200 members of the group, which called itself “Soldiers From Heaven,” died in the fighting, which lasted until about 4 a.m. today. Iraqi officials said that 60 others were wounded and as many as 120 were captured.
Two American soldiers died in the fighting when their helicopter was shot down, and about 10 Iraqi soldiers and police officers were killed.
Abdul Hussein Abtan, the deputy governor of Najaf province, gave an interview to Iraqi television from the battlefield, saying he was standing next to the dead body of the group’s leader. Mr. Abtan said the dead man had claimed to be the Imam Mahdi — the missing spiritual leader whom many Shiites believe will return someday to restore justice.
“Beside me are a large number of prisoners, hundreds of them,” he said. “There are also hundreds dead.”
Najaf is home to one of Shiite Islam’s holiest shrines, and to its leading clerics, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Security across the country, and in particular in the Shiite-dominated south, had been tightened for the start of the Shiite festival of Ashura over the weekend. The festival, which draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to the nearby city of Karbala each year, is marked by processions in Najaf and other Shiite cities.
The governor of the province, Asad Abu Galal, told reporters that the militant group involved in the fighting was led by a man named Ali bin Ali bin Abi Talab. Mr. Galal said that the group’s planned attack “was meant to destroy the Shiite community, kill the grand ayatollahs, destroy the convoys and occupy the holy shrine.”
The exact makeup and motives of the group remained unclear. Mr. Galal described the movement as Shiite in its “exterior,” but not in its “core.”
Mr. Abtan described the movement as “an ideological and military organization with long experience,” and said that its leaders came from outside Iraq. He said it was relatively small, but had rallied a large group of “naïve people” over the past two days by proclaiming the return of the Imam Mahdi.
Mr. Abtan said that two Egyptians had been apprehended in Najaf in connection with the fighting, but the two had escaped, along with a Sudanese and a Lebanese. He said the militant group included Sunnis as well as Shiites.
“They worked under Shiite slogans, but the capabilities they had in the battle are, for sure, not local ones,” he said.
Iraq’s national security minister, Sherwan al-Waeli, told reporters that the group’s followers were told that the killing of the clerics would be a sign that the Imam Mahdi was returning.
“No sane person could believe it,” Mr. Waeli said.
While Iraqi officials stressed today the group’s mixed membership and fringe beliefs, on Sunday two senior Shiite clerics said the gunmen were part of a Shiite splinter group that Saddam Hussein helped build in the 1990’s to compete with followers of the venerated Shiite religious leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
They said the group, calling itself the Mahdawiya, was loyal to Ahmad bin al-Hassan al-Basri, an Iraqi cleric who had a falling out with Muhammad Bakr al-Sadr — father-in-law of the Shiite leader Moktada al-Sadr — in Hawza, a revered Shiite seminary in Najaf.
The clerics spoke on the condition of anonymity because they said they had been ordered not to discuss Shiite divisions.
At today’s news conference, officials emphasized to reporters that the group was very near to beginning its planned attack when it was uncovered by the authorities. “The deadline was very close,” Mr. Galal said.
The fighting around Najaf centered on a date palm orchard near the village of Zarqaa, about 120 miles south of Baghdad. The village is alongside a river and a large grain silo that is surrounded by orchards, the officials said.
The clash appeared to be one of the deadliest battles in Iraq since the American-led invasion four years ago, and it was the first major fight for Iraqi forces in Najaf Province since they took over control of security there from the Americans in December.
At the time, that handover was trumpeted by the Iraqi government as a sign of its progress in regaining more control of Iraqi territory.
Iraqi officials said the militant group, whose numbers were variously estimated at 100 to 600 fighters, was discovered in the orchard Saturday night, prompting a midnight meeting of local authorities.
Iraqi security forces talked to a wounded man in Zarqa after clashes broke out between Iraqi forces and gunmen there.
“We agreed to carry out an operation to take them by surprise,” Mr. Ghalal said.
At dawn, the governor said, the area was surrounded and the offensive began. He said the militants had antiaircraft rockets and long-range sniper rifles, and, according to a soldier involved in the fighting, Iraqi security forces encountered heavy resistance. Commanders called for reinforcements, and a brigade of soldiers from nearby Babil Province joined the fight.
Eventually, Iraqi officials said, they called on the United States military for help. American tanks and helicopter gunships arrived, and gun battles continued into the night. By 10:30 p.m., the gunfire had died down, and Iraqi troops began searching the area for bodies.
Darn good start.