This Christian Science Monitor report about the standoff in Najaf blandly reports that children are inside the Shrine of Ali as human shields. Or at least one child. (Thanks to “Allah” for the link.)
Inside the shrine itself, there were no weapons to be seen, but there were hundreds of Mahdi Army supporters, some of them familiar faces from a demonstration one week ago in Baghdad. They were voluntary human shields, the youngest perhaps 8 years old, the oldest 70.