The worshippers raised posters reading in Arabic, "No occupation"

KUFA, Iraq, April 9 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Sunni and Shiite leaders called Friday, April 9, for joining forces to expel occupation forces – exactly one year since the U.S.-British soldiers seized the oil-rich country.

This came as U.S.-led forces struggled to maintain crumbling control of much of central and southern Iraq against stiff resistance from Sunni and Shiite fighters – a much more grim scene from that of a fanfare one a year before.

"Fie on every traitor, and to everyone who pushed towards occupying this country," said Sunni imam Sheikh Harith Sulaiman al-Dhari on Friday prayers.

"A year ago, some of the Governing Council members suggested that April 9 becomes a holiday. I say woe to whose who made such suggestions," said Dari, the head of the influential Muslim Scholars Associations and imam of Baghdad's Sunni Muslim mosque of Umm al-Qura.

"It is not a holiday, but rather a day of sadness and pain," he was quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) as saying.

Dhari's angry Friday sermon was mainly meant to condemn the U.S. army siege and offensive on Fallujah, west of Baghdad, where resistance fighters have been leading a fierce resistance for the last five days.

More than 1000 people were killed and injured in Fallujah after U.S. bombardment of the town – now sealed off by American soldiers - with its only hospital and makeshift medical centers even shelled.

Dhari called for a three-day strike to protest U.S. army offensives, and branded U.S.-appointed politicians as "traitors" siding with the occupation of Iraq.

‘Boycott’ American, British Goods

The Islamic leader called for a boycott of "all American and British goods and brands".

"This is a religious decree I make clear: It is forbidden to buy American and British goods because their revenues feed the military operations against you and all the Arab and Muslim countries".

Dhari said the besieged residents of Fallujah were not in urgent need of food but badly needed medical supplies and gasoline.

"The power generators in hospitals depend on that," he said.

Medical officials were quoted by al-Jazeera as saying the death toll in the city hit 403 along with 1000 others injured.

After prayers in Umm al-Qura, worshippers converged in the outside, saying they are  prepared supplies destined for the besieged residents of Fallujah.

They raised poster reading in Arabic, 'No occupation'.

Enemy

In the meantime, Shiite Muslim leader Moqtada Sadr Friday branded U.S. President George W. Bush an "enemy" and told him to withdraw his troops from Iraq or face a revolution.

"I address my enemy Bush. You are now fighting an entire nation, from south to north, from east to west, and we advise you to withdraw from Iraq," Sadr said in a message read at the main mosque in this central shrine town by one of his aides.

I call on America not to confront the Iraqi revolution," said Sheikh Jaber al-Khafagi, as he addressed worshippers gathered for the main weekly prayers in Sadr city.

Earlier this week, Sadr, who faces an arrest warrant by the U.S. occupation forces, stayed inside the Kufa mosque. But he ended his sit-in Tuesday and left for the nearby shrine city of Najaf where he is at an undisclosed location.

Calls on the Sunnis and Shiites to act as one nation against the occupiers marked a new trend against all efforts to divide them.

U.S. Civil Administrator Paul Bremer named the Governing Council's Samir Shakir Mahmoud, a Sunni, as Interior Minister, replacing Shiite incumbent Nuri Badran who resigned at the American official’s orders.

No More Fanfare

A year after seizing Baghdad with much fanfare, the occupation troops were locked in fierce fighting or forced to back off in cities west, east and south of the capital as well as the key southern port of Basra.

 The scenes of combat were in stark contrast to images of confident U.S. troops rolling through the capital a year ago, greeted by what they said were “enthusiastic Iraqis” as they toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Perhaps just as significantly, the growing chaos and mounting death toll among U.S. troops has sent support for the operation plummeting in the United States where Bush is facing a tough fight for re-election.

A five-day offensive on Fallujah has failed to end a determined opposition using hit-and-run tactics with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades, officers said.

Fighters seized control Friday of the highway linking Fallujah with the mostly Sunni town of Abu Gharib to the east, according to AFP.

At the same time, U.S. troops were sent into action to retake the city of Kut, southeast of Baghdad, two days after Ukrainian forces were driven out by militiamen loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr.

Fighting also raged Friday in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, south of the capital, with health officials reporting four people, including an Iranian woman, killed.

The United States rushed help for beleaguered Bulgarian troops in Karbala, who were facing an ultimatum from the Sadr militia to quit the city ahead of a major religious celebration scheduled this weekend.

U.S. officials have already acknowledged that the holy Shiite city of Najaf further south, where Sadr has reportedly taken refuge, has slipped from the control of occupation forces.

The southern city of Nasiriyah was under the control of Iraqi police after Italian troops agreed to pull back in the wake of deadly clashes with Shiite militiamen Tuesday that claimed 15 lives.

Iraqi police also patrolled Basra with British forces confined to their base as part of a deal struck with local fighters to halt the violence.