Civilians bear brunt of battle for Najaf

By Alastair Leithead BBC correspondent in Najaf

In Najaf's only hospital, the cries of a grieving mother drown out the dull thud of the rockets and mortars that rain down on the city every day.

Majed lost a leg and was blinded in a mortar attack

Hayfa'a sits sobbing next to the small boy's hospital bed - her son's face and chest peppered with shrapnel cuts.

Majed's right leg has been amputated below the knee. His other leg is heavily bandaged. His thumb and forefinger had to be removed. He has been blinded, and will never father children.

Majed is 10 years old, and was injured when a mortar landed on the family home and killed his elder brother.

Hayfa'a tries to explain what happened, but she just keeps breaking down, wiping away the tears by shrouding her face with the black cloth that covers her whole body.

Hit buying bread

She blames Moqtada Sadr for this - it is his fighters who use mortars and injure civilians, she explained.

But she also blames the Americans for starting this whole war in the first place.

Hayfa'a and everyone else here just wants the fighting to end. Many civilians die or are injured in Najaf every day.

A bullet missed Dhrigham Sihel's heart by a centimetre

In the next room lies Abdul Haleem, who is 11. He has two large shrapnel wounds. One piece of metal pierced his chest and punctured his lung, and another is embedded in his hip.

He is weak, but he explained how it happened.

"I was buying bread for the family," he told me, "and a mortar shell exploded, so I ran away and then another one went off nearer to me. I was unconscious, but the police brought me here to hospital."

In another room, 16-year-old Dhrigham Sihel sits up in bed. A bullet passed through his back and chest, missing his heart by a centimetre or so. But his condition is improving.

The Hakim General Hospital sees at least 20 emergency patients every day. Most have been injured by bullets or shells.

"From the start of the war to now, 232 have been wounded and 52 killed - most civilians, but some from the police - all wounded from the bombing, the shells and the bullets," said the hospital director Dr Jawael Kadhum.

"The ambulances can't work in the street because they are all closed and they are shooting and bombing randomly."

And the ambulances are fast becoming a target. In the three weeks since this fighting began, five medics and drivers have been killed and more than 20 injured.

Valid target

We were shown one ambulance riddled with holes from the bullets that forced it to crash.

"The police took it and drove into the city," one of the ambulance men said. It is little wonder that the ambulances are now seen as a valid target.

A driver was shot in the arm while on an emergency call on Monday.

Many Iraqis say they do not support Sadr

It is thought injured people could be bleeding to death in their homes close to the front line, unable to get out and seek help.

Cars arrive regularly, screeching to a halt as relatives rush out carrying more injured for the doctors to deal with.

"To see every day cases like that it is hard, it's painful, a tragedy," said one of the surgeons. He did not want to be named, because he wanted to tell me what people have been telling him.

'Frightened'

"In this city support for Moqtada Sadr is little," he said, "but he has support in other governorates and from outside."

"People are frightened to say who is responsible for this, but it is the truth."

Mr Sadr is a man who leads a minority, but his supporters say they will fight to the death for him.

The American forces and the Iraqis fighting alongside them are gradually creeping closer towards the shrine to Imam Ali, and the nightly air raids and tank fire are chipping away at morale.

The interim government is again threatening a final action - but they have heard it all before.

The people of Najaf caught up in the violence do not really care, as long as the fighting comes to an end and the killing and maiming is stopped.