¡¡Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq

    BAGHDAD, June 5 (Xinhua) -- Gunmen shot dead a local head of Shiite radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's political movement in a town south of Baghdad on Tuesday, local police source said.

    "Abdul Rahim Muhammed Nayef, head of Sadr movement in the town of Jbela, 65 km south of Baghdad, was showered with bullets by unknown gunmen," the source from Hilla, capital of Babil province, told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

    Sadr, a key political ally of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, led his Mahdi Army militia in two uprisings against the American military in 2004 and has repeatedly demanded U.S. forces to leave Iraq.

    In separate incident, a roadside bomb went off near a police patrol near the Iskandriyah town, some 50 km south of Baghdad, damaging a police vehicle and wounding four policemen aboard, the source said.

    On Monday night, insurgents battled a U.S. convoy near Iskandriyah with small arms fire and rocket propelled grenades, setting a fuel tanker on fire, the source added.