Tomorrow's 'Dawn': Fierce Battle in Najaf

US occupation force and Shia puppet formation forces claim to have killed more than 250 Mujahidden in a battle involving tanks and helicopters on the outskirts of the Shia city of Najaf.

The US military said a helicopter has been shot down in the fighting, resulting in the death of two troops on board. An puppet Shia military commander said the day-long battle was continuing.

Assad Abu Gilel, the puppet "governor" of Najaf province, said US occupation troops and Shia puppet formation fought a day-long battle with up to 1000 Mujahiddeen, including "foreign fighters", holed up in orchards on the northern outskirts of the city.

According to one Iraqi collaboration "political source", hundreds of fighters drawn from both Sunni and Shia communities were still fighting.

A Reuters reporter at the scene, 160km south of Baghdad, saw US tanks and heard blasts after dark and an Iraqi officer said F-16 jets were bombing the area.

Details of the day's fighting were sketchy. A puppet Shia formation source said some of the dead wore headbands declaring themselves a "Soldier of Heaven".

Abu Gilel said that the authorities had uncovered a plot to kill some Shia clerics on Monday, to coincide with the climax of Ashura, the Shia "holy festival".

"There is a conspiracy to kill the clergy on the 10th day of Muharram," Abu Gilel asserted.

Earlier on Sunday, five schoolgirls were killed and another 15 injured when a school in Baghdad came under mortar attack in Sunni areas.

In Baghdad, at least 15 people were killed in bombings in mainly Shia areas, puppet Shia "police" said.

Two car bombs targeting ethnic Kurds killed 16 people in the northern oil city of Kirkuk.

In a videotape sent to Al Jazeera, the Council of Shura al-Mujahideen group said it has destroyed a US tank by a roadside explosive device in the western Iraqi province of Anbar.

In another videotape, the Jaish al-Mujahideen group said that it has destroyed a US military vehicle in the northern Iraqi city of Samarra.