Baghdad was under curfew on Monday, the fourth anniversary of the fall of the capital to US forces, as Iraqis gathered in the city of Najaf for a big anti-US protest called by fiery cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
   ‘No, no, to the occupation, no, no to America,’ thousands of marching Iraqis, mainly men and young boys waving Iraqi flags, chanted as they marched through the southern Shia holy city.
   Iraq imposed a 24-hour vehicle ban in Baghdad from 5:00am to prevent any attacks on the anniversary. Car bombs still plague the capital, despite a new security crackdown by tens of thousands of US and Iraqi troops that is seen as a last attempt to avert sectarian civil war.
   Sadr, who blames the US-led invasion for Iraq’s unrelenting violence, issued a statement on Sunday urging Iraqis to protest against the presence of US troops in Iraq.
   Protesters in Najaf burnt the American flag and spray painted the slogans ‘May America fall’ and ‘Bush is a dog’ on the ground.
   Thousands were marching from nearby Kufa, while others clogged roads as they came by car and bus from Baghdad and Shia cities in the south.
   The powerful young cleric led two uprisings against US forces in 2004 but has since become a major political player. His movement holds a quarter of the seats in the ruling Shia Alliance of the prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki.
   ‘In order to end the occupation, you will go out and demonstrate,’ said Sadr, who had been keeping a low profile in recent months.
   The US president, George W Bush, has insisted US troops will not leave until Iraqis can take over security and has repeatedly rejected setting a timetable for withdrawal.
   
   Six US soldiers, 23 others killed in Iraq
   Six US soldiers and 23 people were killed in Iraq on Sunday where violence showed no let-up four years after the ouster of Saddam Hussein, except for a drop in execution-type killings in the capital patrolled by some 80,000 troops.
   Three soldiers were killed and one wounded in a roadside bombing during a patrol south of Baghdad.
   One soldier was killed and three wounded by indirect fire in an attack targeting their units, also south of Baghdad.
   Two soldiers died north of Baghdad, one in the restive Diyala province and another in the Salaheddin province. Both died of wounds sustained in combat operations.
   Meanwhile, a car bomb near a residential building in an industrial zone in Mahmudiyah, a town south of Baghdad, killed 17 people, local mayor Moyaid al-Amary said.
   The attack coincided with a US military announcement that another four American soldiers had died in a roadside bomb explosion in Diyala province, where guerrillas have become increasingly active in recent months.
   Another six Iraqis were killed in Baghdad on Sunday, five of them in a car bombing in Al-Alam, a mixed Shia-Sunni district that has been rife with sectarian conflict.

Iran Monday broadcast new footage of British sailors it held for a fortnight, saying the pictures of them playing table tennis and watching Premiership football belied assertions of maltreatment.
   Several of the 15 mariners said on their return to Britain last week that they had been maltreated and subjected to psychological pressure during their detention.
   In a clear bid to counter the reports from Britain, Iran’s Arabic language channel Al-Alam broadcast fresh footage that showed some sailors playing table tennis and a larger group playing chess on a Persian carpet.
   Other pictures showed them watching a crunch football game between Liverpool and Arsenal, laughing while sitting barefoot in tracksuits on a rug and tucking into a meal of kebabs and soup.
   ‘These pictures show the relaxation and freedom they enjoyed during their detention period. This contradicts what they said when they arrived home in Britain,’ said the channel’s newsreader.
   ‘Tehran opened its arms and offered hospitality to the 15 British sailors,’ added the newsreader.
   The footage appears to have been taken at the same time as photographs which were released by the Fars news agency the day before the shock announcement of their release by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday.

Pakistani tribesmen flew victory flags and fired in the air Monday after clearing another town of al-Qaeda-linked foreign militants following three weeks of fighting, officials said.
   Tribesmen also found the bodies of eight foreigners killed in the battle to take the town of Azam Warsak and surrounding areas, which are in the mountainous South Waziristan region bordering Afghanistan, the officials said.
   More than 200 militants and 50 tribesmen have died since fierce fighting broke out in South Waziristan on March 19, sparked by a pro-government tribal leader’s demand that the foreigners leave or disarm.
   ‘The lashkar (tribal army) have cleared Azam Warsak of militants and hoisted white flags there and seized the body of eight Uzbek militants who died in the fighting overnight,’ a local administration official said.
   Residents said the fighters also beat traditional war drums that they used last week to summon the 1,000-strong tribal force. Tribesmen in the region use white flags to show that the area is under tribal control, they added.
   The fighters were now carrying out house-to-house searches for militants and securing other areas, the local official said.
   In a separate clash with militants, a tribal elder and a deputy were killed late Sunday near Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, he added.
   Last week Pakistani soldiers entered nearby Sheen Warsak area after tribal fighters seized it, the first troop movement in South Waziristan since a peace agreement was signed with local tribesmen in 2005.

The US point man on North Korea said Monday it was uncertain whether a banking row could be resolved in time to meet this week’s deadline in a breakthrough aid-for-disarmament deal.
   Envoy Christopher Hill started a three-nation regional tour amid intense US diplomacy ahead of Saturday’s deadline, which Japan and China have both publicly doubted can be met.
   North Korea pledged in a six-nation deal in February to shut down its key Yongbyon nuclear facility and allow the return of UN nuclear inspectors by April 14 in return for badly needed fuel aid.
   But the communist state has refused to move until it receives 25 million dollars of its money which was unfrozen from a Macau bank but has taken time to work its way to Pyongyang.
   Despite efforts by US Treasury officials to iron out what they called ‘technical, banking issues,’ Hill declined to predict whether a breakthrough can be reached.
   ‘It is hard to say. We have really worked hard with Macau authorities, with the Beijing government, also with the DPRK,’ Hill told reporters.

Engaged in a fierce debate with Democrats over Iraq, the president, George W Bush, will seek momentum on Monday for an overhaul of US immigration law with his second visit in a year to a major border crossing.
   His trip to Yuma, Arizona, comes as the immigrant community worries about a new approach circulated among Republican lawmakers and Bush administration officials last week that appeared to be aimed at placating conservative opponents.
   The idea called for a new ‘Z’ visa that would allow immigrant workers to apply for three-year work permits. They would cost $3,500 each time they are renewed, a major expense for low-income workers.
   A White House official said the visa concept was among ideas discussed by the administration and Republican lawmakers and was not a formal plan.
   It was scorned by thousands of people who marched in Los Angeles on Saturday, demanding government action to allow an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants to become citizens.

The ICRC expressed concern over a sharp rise in civilian deaths in the northern and eastern regions of Sri Lanka in the past few weeks, including a bombs aimed at passenger buses.
   ‘Only last week some 30 people were killed and more than 50 injured as a result of two bomb attacks on civilian buses and other violent incidents,’ the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross said.
   Last Saturday, suspected Tamil Tiger rebels set off a roadside bomb which hit a passenger bus in the eastern district of Vavuniya killing eight people and injuring 25 others.
   Sri Lanka accused Tamil Tiger rebels of setting off the blast, while the guerrillas denied they were responsible for the attack against civilians.

Six NATO soldiers were killed on Sunday in a mine explosion in southern Afghanistan, the deadliest single attack on NATO forces in the country this year, the alliance said in a statement.
   The soldiers, who were all Canadian, died after a roadside bomb was detonated in Helmand province, where NATO troops are fighting the Taliban, Canadian television reported prime minister Stephen Harper as saying. Earlier, NATO said in a statement: ‘Six International Security Assistance Force soldiers died today in southern Afghanistan as a result of injuries sustained when the vehicle they were travelling in hit an explosive device.’
   A seventh NATO soldier, whose nationality is not known, was killed a separate blast on Sunday.

UN helicopters flew in extra ballots to remote polling centres that ran short as East Timor saw surprisingly high turnouts in Monday’s poll for a new president, officials said.
   The Timorese Technical Secretariat for Election Administration, which described the vote as successful and peaceful, said reserve ballots were needed at 14 of 504 polling centres based on the latest information it had.
   UNMIT, or the UN mission in East Timor, and the international peacekeeping force helped by supplying helicopters for hard to reach polling centres, STAE said in a statement.
   They made four ‘rapid reaction support flights to meet ballot paper deficits,’ the local body helping to administer the vote said.
   ‘On the back of what so far has been an operationally successful and peaceful polling day, a high morning and early-afternoon turnout has been reported for Timor-Leste’s (East Timor’s) presidential election,’ it said.
   STAE said 5,000 extra ballots were needed in polling centres that ran short.
   ‘At STAE headquarters in Dili, government teams supported by UNMIT advisers moved over 5,000 additional reserve ballot papers to polling centre locations, including those inaccessible by road,’ it said.

More than a dozen Muslim detainees have launched a new hunger strike at the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, The New York Times reported on its website Sunday.
   Citing military officials and lawyers, the newspaper said the military responded by beginning to force-feed the detainees.
   Lawyers for several hunger strikers said the hunger strike had been prompted by harsh conditions at a new maximum security complex, to which about 160 prisoners had been moved since December, according to the report. The 13 detainees now on hunger strikes is the highest number to endure the force-feeding regimen on an extended basis since early 2006, when the military broke a long-running strike with a new policy of strapping prisoners into restraint chairs while they are fed by plastic tubes inserted through their nostrils, the paper said.
   The hunger strikers are now monitored so closely the they have virtually no chance to starve themselves, according to The Times. ‘We don’t have any rights here, even after your Supreme Court said we had rights,’ the report quotes one hunger striker, Majid al-Joudi, as telling a military physician, according to medical records released recently under a federal court order.
   ‘If the policy does not change, you will see a big increase in fasting,’ al-Joudi said.
   Newly released Pentagon documents show that during earlier hunger strikes, before the use of restraint chairs, some detainees suffered sharp weight losses, The Times said.