300 Fighters Killed in Najaf Battle:

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. marines have killed an estimated 300 fighters loyal to a firebrand Iraqi Shi'ite cleric in fierce clashes around the holy city of Najaf in the past two days, a senior U.S. officer said Friday....

The fresh fighting, which still raged Friday, marks a major challenge for the interim government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and appears to have destroyed a two-month-old cease-fire between U.S. forces and Sadr's Mehdi militia.

"The number of enemy casualties is 300 KIA (killed in action)," Lieutenant Colonel Gary Johnston, operations officer for the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, said at a military base near the city, 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad.

Johnston told reporters the Mehdi fighters were badly coordinated and shot at random against the heavily armed marines who were backed up by helicopter gunships and fighter planes.

While their were some flare ups in violence yesterday, it seems almost certain that this major offensive is related to news that Grand Ayatollah Sistani's, who has called for cooperation with the new government, health is failing:

LONDON (Reuters) - Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has arrived in London for treatment for a heart condition.

The influential cleric, who has been a voice of moderation in postwar Iraq, landed at Heathrow airport on Friday aboard a scheduled flight from Beirut....

The reclusive Iranian-born Sistani holds huge sway over Iraq's 60 percent Shi'ite majority despite rarely speaking in public and not having left Najaf, south of Baghdad, for years.

He played a leading role in striking a ceasefire that halted fighting in April and May between the Mehdi Army militia of firebrand Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and American troops across southern and central Iraq.

Also zombie hunting: Cameron

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