Coalition forces enter center of Fallujah
Three civilians killed in Kirkuk drive-by shooting
 |  U.S. and Iraqi forces roll into Fallujah on Monday. |
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Coalition forces entered the center of Fallujah on Monday, the site of intense fighting between Marines and Iraqi insurgents last month.
An Iraqi Civilian Defense Corps unit, accompanied by a small contingent of U.S. forces, entered the city center Monday in a convoy of about 16 vehicles, according to journalist Hazim Abboud.
The fighting in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, was sparked by the killing and mutilation of four American contractors in the city on March 31. Nearly a third of Fallujah's 200,000 people fled the fighting.
Also Monday, insurgents wrecked part of an oil pipeline in southern Iraq, coalition officials said.
The southern pipeline was damaged and could now only handle 1 million barrels a day -- down from 1.6 million barrels, coalition officials added.
The pipeline -- actually several smaller lines running the same route -- was still on fire Monday, officials said, but the blaze has been contained.
In the northern city of Kirkuk, two construction workers -- one South African and one New Zealander -- and their Iraqi driver were shot dead, officials said.
Taking on al-Sadr
Also Monday, the new coalition-appointed governor arrived in Najaf, where U.S. forces are engaged in a lockdown with the banned militia of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Al-Sadr's Mehdi Army launched an uprising against U.S. troops last month after the arrest of one of the cleric's deputies in connection with the killing of a rival cleric a year ago. Al-Sadr is also wanted for questioning in connection with the killing.
In Kufa, a city close to Najaf, at least two people died and 12 others were injured Sunday night when coalition forces bombarded Iraqi insurgents, hospital officials said Monday.
The shelling targeted the Haye al-Rashadiya neighborhood near the Kufa mosque, where al-Sadr delivers weekly sermons on Fridays.
Capt. Brian O'Malley, of the Army's 1st Cavalry Division, said Monday that coalition forces destroyed al-Sadr's Baghdad headquarters in the suburb of Sadr City after his followers attacked coalition forces and an Iraqi police station in Thawra.
On Sunday, U.S. soldiers killed 16 insurgents in a string of engagements in Baghdad's eastern Thawra district, and at least five people were killed across town in an explosion at a crowded market. Four more were wounded in a blast Sunday night at the Baghdad Four Seasons Hotel, the Coalition Press Information Center said.
Iraqi police said six of their officers were among the 13 people wounded in Sunday's marketplace attack, and that a child was among the dead.
Other developments
A U.S. soldier was killed Monday by a suspected sniper in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, military spokesman Capt. Joseph Pink said. The Coalition press office said Monday that a 1st Infantry Division soldier was killed and another wounded Saturday near Samarra when an improvised explosive device detonated. The names of the soldiers have not been made public.President Bush praised embattled Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Monday, saying he was doing "a superb job." Bush said the United States "will honor the rule of law" in its investigation of abuse at Iraqi prisons. Meanwhile, the Army general who wrote a report critical of U.S. treatment of Iraqi prisoners will appear Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, sources say. (Full story)Spain has said it will cede its military base in Iraq to the United States between Saturday and and May 17. Defense Minister Jose Bono said Monday that all Spanish troops could be out of Iraq sooner than the May 27 pullout date previously announced, officials told CNN. (Full story)Journalist Seymour Hersh wrote a new article in The New Yorker magazine this week that includes a photograph that shows American guards apparently setting dogs on a naked prisoner at Abu Ghraib. (Full story)U.S. lawmakers will privately review more images this week of U.S. troops mistreating Iraqi prisoners, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Sunday. (Full story) Italian antiterrorism police arrested an Algerian imam and four Tunisians on Sunday in a crackdown on an Islamic extremist cell that authorities said was preparing to send potential suicide attackers to Iraq. (Full story)
