KARBALA: Police ordered hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to leave the Iraqi city of Karbala yesterday after fierce gunbattles erupted between security forces and gunmen near two of Shi'ite Islam's holiest shrines.

Powerful Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr called for calm as a security source said 52 people had been killed and 206 wounded.

Elsewhere, a series of US-led air and ground assaults in Iraqi flashpoints has killed at least 41 suspected rebels, the American military said.