"They will try to remain on the sidelines to suffer the least possible damage, until they are certain that the Iraqi regime's repressive machine has been annihilated," an official from the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI) told AFP.

"When this point is reached, they will start organizing themselves," Mohsen Hakim said.

Troops of the US-British coalition were nearing Baghdad Friday and controlled much of Saddam International Airport, 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the city center.

The Pentagon is betting on the collaboration of the Shiite half of the population in the five-million-strong capital, persecuted by the regime of Saddam Hussein.

"Given Shiites are half the population ... you probably have people ready to help out, you have to be patient," Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers said.

Saddam and most of his regime are from Iraq's Sunni minority.

At the beginning of the war two weeks ago, SAIRI chief Mohammed Baqer Hakim urged Shiites to remain neutral, blaming both the Americans and Saddam for the war.

According to Arab press reports, SAIRI and Iranian conservative clerics have been unsettled by the sudden surfacing in the holy city of Najaf of a prominent opposition Shiite cleric, who has been based in London since the crushed 1991 Shiite uprising in southern Iraq.

There was speculation that Sayyed Abdelmajid al-Khoei, a cleric who has repeatedly called for Shiite cooperation with the United States, was brought into the central city of Najaf by US forces and that his return signaled a US attempt to promote a "pro-American" current.

But SAIRI's London office nevertheless insisted it was not being isolated by Washington and that it was still a likely player in post-Saddam Iraq.

London SAIRI representative Hamed al-Bayati told AFP that if Washington "tries to exclude us, we will see what our position will be. So far this is not the case."

The coalition has decided not to include the Shiites in its war effort, unlike the Kurds in the north who are advancing on government-controlled cities with the help of US forces and coalition airstrikes.

The Shiite religious leader in Najaf, Grand Ayatollah Mirza Ali Sistani, denied a US military report that he had issued a fatwa (religious decree) calling on the populace not to impede coalition military forces, Arab news channel Al-Jazeera reported Friday.

On the contrary, Iraqi television said Sistani and four other top Shiite clerics at Najaf had called on Iraqis of all beliefs and ethnic groups to unite in the defense of their country against "the enemies of God and humanity."

The television showed an aged cleric, who was not identified, reading the fatwa to this effect.

Saddam also made a surprize appearance on Iraqi state television Friday and called on all Baghdad residents to resist advancing coalition forces.

For his part, Sheikh Hussein Fadlallah, spiritual leader of Lebanon's fundamentalist Shiites, called on all Muslims to resist the coalition forces in their drive to Baghdad.

"We urge US-British forces not to attack holy sites (in Najaf and Karbala) and we call on Muslims and free men around the world to resist the invaders," he told worshippers after Friday prayers in Beirut.

Meanwhile, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former Iranian president and still an influential figure in Iran, warned of the fury any damage inflicted by coalition forces on holy sites could trigger.

"I am warning the White House and Britain: let not your vanity or your fervor harm Shiite Islam's holy sites because Shiites will never forgive you and they, as well as God, will avenge it in due time," he said.

Rafsanjani, who heads the Expediency Council that arbitrates disputes between branches of the regime, temporarily set Iran's historical differences with Iraq aside and argued that the United States was a greater common enemy.

"The United States has become an ignominious monster and the most abhorred figure in the world," he said

"The American danger is greater than Saddam and his Baath party."

The central Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala, which have been the scene of intense fighting between coalition troops and Iraqi forces, are the holiest in Shiite Islam after Mecca and Medina.

SPACE.WIRE