US-backed Iraqi forces have approached to the Imam Ali shrine and will end Najaf standoff "today or tomorrow", police chief of Najaf said Wednesday.

"Our forces are very close to the revered shrine, and the Najaf crisis will end within today or tomorrow," police chief Brigadier Amer Hamza told reporters in a news conference in Najaf.

US tanks and armored vehicles came closer to the shrine early in the morning as artillery and machine gunfire resonated throughout the area, Xinhua correspondent in Najaf Aziz al-Shammary said.

Concerning the call of Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani for Iraqis to march to save Najaf, Hamza said, "these information aims at provoking riot and unrest in the city, which is almost to be quiet."

Earlier on Wednesday, a senior aide to Iraq's top Shiite cleric Sistani said the cleric was returning home from London within hours and has urged all Iraqis to take to streets to save the holy city of Najaf.

Now Sistani is heading for his home in Najaf, Dubai-based al-Arabiya TV channel reported.

Meanwhile, several blasts echoed throughout Najaf as fighting continued between the US-backed Iraqi forces and Shiite militiamen holed up in the shrine.

Source: Xinhua