Shi?ite militia fought US and allied troops again in at least two towns in southern Iraq yesterday and buried their dead in the holy city of Najaf.

Secretary of State Colin Powell tried to patch up the damage to US authority in Iraq caused by the scandal over soldiers torturing detainees. But, with the return of Iraqi sovereignty just 45 days away, there was little sign of an end to anti-American violence or popular hostility to occupation.

Powell, offering a new apology for the prisoner abuse, said in neighbouring Jordan: ?Everybody says we should return sovereignty to the Iraqi people so that it no longer looks like an occupation. That?s exactly what we are trying to do and what we plan to accomplish by the end of June.? But he added: ?They need our troops there for some considerable time in the future.?

As a new poll showed support waning for President Bush?s re-election in November, the Pentagon dismissed a media report that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld personally approved interrogation methods that may have led to torture.

In Najaf, aides to rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr accused Washington?s British allies of murdering prisoners from Sadr?s Mehdi Army and mutilating their bodies. The guerrillas buried 22 comrades in Najaf, who they said died as a result of a battle with the British near the southern town of Amara on Friday.

British officers said they killed about 20 fighters on that day, when soldiers fought off a series of ambushes. A defense ministry spokesman dismissed the accusations of maltreatment.

British newspapers quoted an unidentified military source as saying men from a Highland regiment fixed bayonets to charge Mehdi Army mortar positions in ?fierce hand-to-hand fighting.? US tanks dominated streets in the holy city of Kerbala yesterday, exchanging fire from shortly after dawn with Sadr fighters who attacked with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, witnesses said. US helicopters clattered overhead. One guerrilla was killed and three wounded, doctors said.

New American apology

In Nassiriya, Italian troops clashed with fighters who have taken up positions in the town since Friday, one of a number of centers of what US commanders describe as a ?minor uprising? in response to fighting around Sadr?s headquarters in Najaf. Guerrillas were firing on the Italians from a hospital, an Italian defense ministry spokesman said in Rome.

US-led forces have been trying to drive Sadr?s men from several cities across Shi?ite southern Iraq over the past two weeks. US commanders say they are constrained, particularly in Kerbala and around Sadr?s main base in Najaf, by efforts to avoid damaging sacred sites, where fighters are taking refuge.

On friday, however, tanks stormed onto holy ground in Najaf?s sprawling ancient cemetery for the first time. While impatient with Sadr, a young firebrand with a strong following among impoverished young men in Iraq?s majority Shi?ite community, Iraqi political and religious leaders are also concerned at US military inroads into the holy cities.

The Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni Muslim group represented on the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, issued a statement yesterday calling on US troops to ?abandon the military solution? and pull out of Najaf and Kerbala.

Powell offered a new American apology yesterday to Iraqi prisoners abused by US soldiers in Baghdad?s Abu Ghraib prison: ?We are devastated by what happened at Abu Ghraib. We apologize to those who were abused in such an awful manner.?

The first of seven US soldiers charged over the abuse, revealed in lurid photographs, faces a court martial in Baghdad on Wednesday. Three others will be arraigned on Thursday.

The Pentagon described as ?outlandish? allegations in the New Yorker magazine that Rumsfeld authorized the use of unconventional interrogation methods in Iraq to gain intelligence, ultimately leading to the abuse of prisoners.

The US military has recently prohibited several interrogation methods from being used in Iraq, including sleep and sensory deprivation and body ?stress positions?.

A Newsweek magazine poll released on Saturday showed Bush?s approval rating sinking to a record low of 42 percent. It said 57 percent disapproved of his handling of Iraq. It showed challenger John Kerry leading Bush by 46 percent to 45 percent, within a three-point margin of error.

Suleiman al-Khalidi