Near Najaf, April 14 (Reuters): US forces tightened their grip around one of Iraq’s holiest cities today and the rebel Shia cleric they have vowed to kill or capture offered unconditional talks to spare Najaf a bloodbath.

Moqtada al-Sadr, who launched an anti-US uprising this month and is now holed up in Najaf, had dropped previous conditions for talks with US authorities, his spokesperson said.

Iran said its arch-foe, the US, had asked it to help calm the Iraq crisis. A Shia political source said an official Iranian delegation had flown to Baghdad to mediate.

As tension rose in Najaf, Russia offered to fly out more than 800 of its nationals and citizens of former Soviet states to escape the hostage-taking and violence sweeping Iraq.

Kidnappers freed a French journalist seized on Sunday, but more than a dozen foreigners remained captive.

Two more Japanese civilians have been kidnapped in Iraq, in addition to the three taken hostage by armed militants last week, Japanese media said today.

More clashes erupted between Sunni guerrillas and US Marines in Falluja, west of Baghdad. Witnesses said a US air strike hit the city’s Hay al-Dubat area at dusk. They said four civilians and two fighters were killed in overnight fighting.

The US military announced eight more American soldiers had died in combat, bringing to 93 the number killed in action in April — four more than in the three-week war that toppled Saddam Hussein last year.

Sadr, branded an outlaw by US generals, had been staying near the Imam Ali shrine, sacred to the world’s Shias , but an aide said he had since moved to his father’s house in eastern Najaf.