The sensitivities of fighting in Iraq were brought home to US troops last week when they were ordered to hold their fire after coming under attack from Iraqi forces inside Najaf's Ali Mosque, one of the most sacred tombs of the Shiite faith.

But such restraint was not enough to fend off accusations by Iraqi authorities that the coalition was trying to destroy the tombs of imams Ali in Najaf and Hussein in Karbala by sending warplanes screeching low over the holy sites.

US Major Christopher Varhola said that, "as a general rule no American soldier enters a mosque," and underlined that the coalition recognized "the mosque of Hussein and mosque of Ali as extremely important cultural and religious sites".

Varhola fought as a tank platoon leader in the last Gulf War but is now working with a team that has drawn up a list of hundreds of sites of historic and religious significance in Iraq to help avoid destroying its cultural legacy forever.

"Five hundred years from now the combat between America and Iraq will be less relevant than the fact that hopefully those sites will still be there," said Varhola.

"Iraq is the cradle of civilization. It's the source of so much we owe our culture to. It's absolutely priceless."

The heritage list is designed to prevent not only collateral damage from bombs or artillery but also from engineering work by the tens of thousands of coalition troops who are now in Iraq.

Lieutenant Colonel John Kuttas of the US Army's civil affairs office said commanders were given access to the list of sites to ensure "we do everything humanly possible to prevent unnecessary damage".

Kuttas said, however, that any final decision on what force could be justified in a military operation had to be left to officers in charge of troops on the ground.

"The commander in the field is going to make the final call in the final analysis about whether he wants to put a soldier at risk. However, he also understands what is at stake here. He has got the bigger picture."

The sheikh of Al-Azhar, the highest Sunni Muslim spiritual authority, Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, said in Cairo on Saturday that suicide attacks on coalition troops were "permitted under (Islamic) religious law".

His ruling comes after Syria's Grand Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Kaftaro, the country's top Muslim religious authority, called for suicide bombings against US and British troops in Iraq.

Kuttas said coalition troops were well aware of the need to avoid inflaming Muslim sentiments.

"In the event where you do have a situation where aircraft are parked around a mosque or snipers are occupying a minaret the coalition response is going to be measured and it is going to proportionate," he said.

(China Daily April 6, 2003)