A US AC-130 gunship joined an attack on Shia militant positions near a shrine in Najaf tonight. Several blasts were heard after the plane started circling above the battered city. Hours earlier, the Iraqi government warned it would wipe out the militants if they did not surrender.
Iraqi security forces tightened their grip on the streets around a sacred shrine in Najaf today after the government warned Shia rebels inside they would be killed if they did not surrender.
"God willing, we'll be moving in tonight," a commander of one unit said, adding that around 500 Iraqi troops had been deployed to the area around the Imam Ali mosque, the first time government forces had entered the battle zone.
By nightfall, no final push was under way, but some Iraqi troops were within 400 metres of the shrine, and roads around it were sealed off. Two loud blasts shook the area around the shrine in the evening, throwing up clouds of heavy smoke.
Defence Minister Mr Hazim al-Shalaan said the Mehdi Army fighters loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr faced death unless they ended their rebellion, which has sparked fighting that has killed hundreds, driven oil prices to record highs and sparked clashes in several other Iraqi towns and cities.
"We are in the last hours. This evening, Iraqi forces will reach the doors of the shrine and control it and appeal to the Mehdi Army to throw down their weapons," he told reporters.
"If they do not, we will wipe them out."
Sadr aide Ali Smeisim told reporters in Najaf the Mehdi Army was willing to hold talks to end the fighting.
"We are ready to negotiate to put an end to the suffering," Ali Smeisim said in Najaf.
But another aide mocked Shalaan's threat - the latest in a series of government ultimatums.
"Let him throw his warnings in the trash along with his previous statements about last chances in the last three weeks," Aws al-Khafaji told Al Jazeera television.
"This is a new night of holy jihad against tyrannical forces trying to attack our sanctities and honour," he said. "What will Shalaan tell himself if morning comes and the Mehdi army is still defending the holy shrine?"
The Iraqi advance was backed by US aircraft which fired missiles and strafed militants dug in at a cemetery near the mosque, where most of the fighters have holed up during the three-week uprising in the city.
With fighting raging, US tanks reinforced positions along the southern flank of the mosque. Black smoke rose from the area and automatic gunfire crackled.