A fierce gunbattle erupted overnight Sunday between US forces and militiamen loyal to radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Sadr near Najaf's holy shrine, said reports reaching Baghdad from the holy city. 

Sadr's Mehdi Army clashed regularly with US forces parked in tanks around 300 meters away from the Imam Ali shrine, witnesses were quoted as saying.

They added that guns and mortar bombs were heard being fired from inside the mosque compound before a brief US aerial bombardment over the Old City around midnight (about 2000 GMT).

Early on Sunday, US military aircraft pounded positions held by Sadr's militiamen before the military tanks advanced to a few hundred meters away from Imam Ali shrine for the first time during Najaf crisis, al-Arabiya TV channel reported.

The 18 days of fierce fighting have resulted in hundreds of Iraqi victims and the destruction of the city that is almost deserted.

(Xinhua News Agency August 23, 2004)