Spanish troops rejected a US request for a major offensive against the Shiite Muslim militia in the holy city of Najaf before they pulled out of Iraq last month, a Spanish general in the US-led occupation force was quoted as saying on Tuesday.
Newspapers quoted General Jose Enrique de Ayala as telling senior US commanders: "Our mandate is not to be an offensive force but to contribute to stabilisation and reconstruction, and in any case we do not have the means to launch a large-scale offensive."
Ayala met a small group of journalists including reporters for the dailies El Pais, El Mundo and ABC who accompanied Defence Minister Jose Bono on a one-day surprise visit to Iraq on Sunday.
He said that in early April, US commanders asked the 200 Spanish troops then in Najaf to launch an offensive to capture the Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr, who had instigated an uprising against the occupying force after he was declared an outlaw by the chief US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer.
The last Spanish combat forces left Iraq on April 28, two weeks after the new government of socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero took office in Madrid.
Sadr ordered his militiamen not to attack the departing Spaniards as they withdrew from Najaf.
On his return to Madrid on Monday, Bono told a news conference that Spain had "categorically refused to hand over a certain religious leader, dead or alive, as it was asked to do at one time."
He added that "Spanish troops are subject to international law which prevents them from acting as an occupying or attacking force."
Ayala described the Spanish troops in Iraq as "speechless witnesses to a conflict which we did not understand or approve."
Several hundred Spanish logistics troops are still in Iraq organising the withdrawal of equipment. Bono said they might be able to hand over their base at Diwaniyah, south of Baghdad, to US forces by the end of this week.
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