Fighting in Baghdad as Sadr aide killed

By Wisam Mohammed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Fierce fighting broke out in Baghdad's Sadr City slum late on Friday after a senior aide to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr was killed in the holy city of Najaf to the south.

Heavy gunfire erupted at around 11:00 p.m. (2100 GMT) in several parts of the slum, an east Baghdad stronghold of Sadr's followers and home to 2 million people.

A Reuters correspondent said U.S. helicopters and jets were swooping overhead and several of the aircraft fired missiles. The number of casualties was not immediately known.

As the fighting raged, loudspeakers on mosques blared out speeches in support of Sadr's Mehdi Army fighters.

"We will not allow the Americans to enter the city whatever happens, if we lose our lives and our sons," they said.

In Najaf, police set up road blocks and drove through the city with loudspeakers ordering shops closed and people off the streets after senior Sadr aide Riyadh al-Nuri was gunned down.

A struggle for power among Shi'ites in the south has involved frequent assassinations over recent years. But the death of someone so close to Sadr risks inflaming those tensions at a time when his militia has been at the centre of an upsurge in violence in Baghdad and throughout the south.

Nuri's sister is married to the cleric's brother.