Najaf (Iraq): US armoured vehicles trapped Najaf's Imam Ali shrine in a pincer grip today (Aug 25, 2004) smashing through Shiite militiamen defences as snipers fired on all those coming or going from the mausoleum.

A US plane fired a missile close to the mausoleum, making the building tremble and filling it with dust, said an eyewitness.

The closest US vehicle was 20 metres from the western gate of the complex, for four months the military headquarters of radical cleric Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi Army, after troops closed in from the Najaf sea, a desert surrounding the city.

Makeshift barricades set up to protect the entrance were torched as tanks moved along the western side of the compound wall towards the surrounding Old City.

To the East, US forces had smashed through militia defences in the marketplace in Midan square while the heavy boom of artillery fire thundered out across the area from the southern side.

The situation on the northern side, closest to the city's vast cemetery, was not immediately clear but the southern and northern exits from the shrine were in the sights of snipers, preventing anyone from entering or leaving.

The shrine -- one of the holiest Shiite pilgrimage sites in the world -- was very close to being sealed off from the rest of the city, reports said.

Hundreds of heavily-armed Iraqi national guardsmen, who were deployed in the Old City for the first time yesterday, continued to patrol the streets and alleyways.