Iraqi Police Fire Warning Shots Near Kufa

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=716&e=5&u=/ap/20040903/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

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BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi police fired warning shots and barred vehicle traffic leading to Kufa on Friday, fearing an outbreak of violence as hundreds of worshippers descended on the holy city for the first weekly prayers since radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr relinquished control of its revered shrine under a peace deal.


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Iraqi police and national guardsmen set up checkpoints, barring all cars from entering the city and limiting the number of worshippers allowed in. Nevertheless, some 700 people gathered around the shrine.


Ahmed al-Shaibani, an al-Sadr aide, accused police forces of arresting dozens of the cleric's followers in Kufa and the nearby city of Najaf, which was devastated by three weeks of bitter fighting between U.S. forces and al-Sadr's Mahdi militia that ended last week.


Despite the peace deal in Najaf, many members of al-Sadr's militia are thought to have returned with their weapons to their Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City and the cleric's representatives and Iraq's interim government have been seeking common ground to end fighting there.