US troops clashed with insurgents late today in the central Iraqi city of Ramadi, injuring at least seven people, witnesses and hospital officials said.

The clashes erupted mainly around the city’s government buildings, witnesses said. US warplanes and helicopters hovered overhead, as explosions and gunfire echoed through the city.

The Ramadi General Hospital treated seven people wounded in the clashes, said Dr Abdel Munim Aftan.

Hospital officials said there were more casualties but that ambulances were not able to get into the area of the fighting to collect victims. The military had no immediate comment.

Meanwhile, four people were killed and 14 wounded when a rocket hit a major Baghdad street, the military said in a statement. The rocket hit a busy side of Palestine Street, witnesses said. Blood stains could be seen on the street, videotape from Associated Press Television news showed.

There were no US casualties in the attack.

A further series of explosions also rocked the centre of the capital this evening.

In Kufa, an aide to radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr warned that his supporters could rise up again if Iraqi authorities continue raiding his offices and detaining his followers.

Earlier this week, US troops raided al-Sadr’s office in the southern holy city of Najaf and detained around a dozen people. The move angered al-Sadr’s followers as well as Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who said it violated a peace deal he brokered.

“This aggression is a serious precedent in the new Iraq and for the state which has thrown itself in the arms of the occupation,” said Sheik Hashim Abu Regheef in a sermon attended by hundreds of worshippers outside nearby Kufa Mosque today.

US and government forces “are trying to finish off this movement”, he said.

Al-Sadr, who commands widespread support among Iraq’s poorer Shiites, led a three-week uprising in Najaf against the US Marines that ended last month with a peace deal brokered by al-Sistani.

“The pressures on us are great after the signing of the agreement,” Regheef said. “We will be back if the leader orders us to ... We will rise up when we’re ordered to.”

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