If Iyad Allawi, the Iraqi interim prime minister, was still hoping on Sunday for a compromise to end the bloody confrontation in Najaf, there was little sign that fighters loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, the rebel Shia cleric, had heard about it. Instead they were preparing for battle.

At the Kufa mosque, near the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf where Mr Sadr's forces are holding out against a three-week-old seige, militiamen were eagerly awaiting new arms shipments on Sunday. A Kia van, stacked with water melons, drove up a ramp and right into the mosque, where dozens of Mr Sadr's followers inside pulled away the water melons to reveal a stack of assault rifles AK-47s and Iranian-made M-14s.