BAGHDAD -- Sporadic shooting could be heard today in the southern city of Samawah after violent clashes erupted between security forces and members of the Mahdi militia affiliated with anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada Sadr.

The shootings killed two Iraqi police and injured 36 people, including some Iraqi police and soldiers, said Dr. Saleh Abdul Hassan, manager of the Samawah health clinic. Government offices closed, security forces imposed a curfew for the night and Iraqi security forces could be seen taking sniper positions atop buildings in the city, witnesses said.

Abdul Razzaq Mdrrih Zaidai, a neighborhood representative in Samawah, was hiding with his family at home, hesitant to emerge even though he said armed militants had left the area today.

"We hear shooting from time to time, but most of it is the shooting of the security forces," he said.

Many residents stayed inside today, he said, unable to shop or scrounge for gas and kerosene, which are in short supply. "Life under the sanctions imposed on Iraq was better than the life these days in Samawah," Zaidai said.

Tribal sheik Abdul Kareem Khafaji said Al Mahdi Army gunmen were sticking to their stronghold in the Jumhoori neighborhood today, across the Euphrates River from his home.

"On the side of the river where I live, it is quiet," he said. "But on the other side of the river, shooting can be heard from time to time."

Khafaji said he and other tribal leaders have attempted to stop the spate of Mahdi Army violence by calling meetings with local officials, to no avail.

Samawah, the capital of Muthanna province, is about 145 miles southeast of Baghdad in a mainly Shiite area. Violence has erupted there several times in recent months, as well as in the city of Nasiriya to the east.

The latest outbreak followed an attempt by Mahdi Army members on Wednesday to visit Rumaitha, a town north of Samawah, to inaugurate their new office, according to police. Iraqi security forces stopped the armed men before they entered the town and demanded they leave their weapons behind and pick them up as they left, police said. But the men refused, and went to Samawah instead, where they gathered with about 150 supporters for a protest that lead to clashes with police.

U.S. forces could be seen on the outskirts of the city today, witnesses said. But American officials handed over security for Muthanna province to local Iraqi forces in June 2006, and the city remains under Iraqi control.

In west Baghdad, the military announced that a U.S. soldier was killed during combat operations Thursday, raising the U.S. military's death toll in Iraq to 3,592, according to icasualties.org, which tracks deaths in Iraq.

The capital saw several attacks today, including a roadside bomb in the southeastern neighborhood of Zafaraniya that killed a civilian and injured another and a barrage of about seven rockets that struck the fortified Green Zone, with no injuries reported, according to a U.S. Embassy spokesman.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, the Rev. George Atta, a Chaldean Christian priest, was kidnapped with his son, Louise Atta, and two relatives about 11:30 a.m. Thursday by unknown gunmen, according to an anonymous police source.

Atta had recently fled Baghdad's mainly Sunni Dora neighborhood. The Rev. Louise Sakis, a high-ranking Chaldean clergyman, said the kidnappers are demanding about $160,000 ransom.

Also in Kirkuk, a roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi police patrol injured two civilians today, said Kirkuk police Maj. Salim Khalil.

Militants fired two rockets at a Kirkuk air base, injuring a civilian, said Iraqi police Brig. Gen. Serhad Qadir.

About 45 miles south of Kirkuk in the city of Hawija, gunmen killed an Iraqi soldier today.

To the south, four Iraqi soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb while driving between Hillah and Karbala at midnight.

British forces also came under attack Thursday night in the southern city of Basra, with mortar attacks and shootings. No casualties were reported today, said Maj. Matthew Bird, a spokesman for British forces.

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske
Los Angeles Times

Times staff writers Raheem Salman and Said Rifaiand and special correspondents in Kirkuk, Samawah and Hillah contributed to this report.