Brussels, Belgium ? Iraq’s Shiite Muslim uprising is transforming America’s coalition partners from peacekeepers into warriors — a role few of them wanted or were equipped to handle.

For months, most of the 24,000 soldiers from nearly 40 U.S. partner countries had faced relatively little danger compared with beleaguered American units facing daily attacks in the volatile Sunni Triangle or in the capital Baghdad.

Coalition governments could tell their nervous publics that the troops were in Iraq on humanitarian missions — repairing roads, digging wells, providing security and generally helping a shattered people recover from decades of war and tyranny.

All that changed last weekend when followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr rose up after the arrest of an aide who was also accused in the slaying of a rival cleric.

Soldiers from Spain, Latin America, Ukraine, Italy, Poland, Bulgaria, Britain and other countries came under fierce attack by Shiite militias in a wide swath of central and southern Iraq.

The effects have been devastating.

On Wednesday, Ukrainian troops abandoned the strategic town of Kut, evacuating about 20 American, British, Polish and other civilian officials of the U.S.-led occupation authority after mortar and infantry attacks by al-Sadr’s militia, the al-Mahdi Army.

One Ukrainian soldier was killed and five were wounded Tuesday in Kut — the first combat fatality for Ukraine’s 1,650-member contingent.

Elsewhere, the Spanish military watched as al-Sadr’s gunmen seized control of the holy Shiite city of Najaf, including police stations and the Imam Ali Shrine. Spanish officials have turned to local tribal and religious leaders to see if they can negotiate an end to the takeover.

Italian troops and paramilitary police battled Shiite gunmen early Tuesday for control of bridges across the Euphrates River in Nasiriyah. Fifteen Iraqis were killed and 12 Italians were slightly wounded, Italian authorities said.

That’s more than many of the coalition governments bargained for when they signed on to a “coalition of the willing” formed after the Bush administration failed to win a U.N. mandate for the Iraq war last year.

Now, some political leaders fear domestic support for the Iraq mission will collapse if the unrest cannot be curbed.

“When people see dramatic scenes in which soldiers are killed, there will be more pressure for a pullout,” Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller told The Associated Press in Warsaw on Wednesday.

Italy’s conservative government vows to stand fast in Iraq. However, The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano said the clashes in Nasiriyah show that Italian soldiers “are forced not just to be operators of peace but also instruments of death.”

Even before the flare-up, South Korea backed out of sending its 3,600 troops to Kirkuk because of possible conflict in an area coveted by rival ethnic groups. The South Koreans are considering two Kurdish cities that are among the most peaceful in the country.

Japan’s government sold the mission to a skeptical public by calling it a humanitarian mission. Since the trouble started, the nearly 500 Japanese soldiers have been holed up in their camp near Samawah, ceasing all humanitarian activities until order is restored.

The Bush administration put together the coalition after failing to win support within the United Nations or the NATO alliance.

In doing so, Washington relied heavily on conservative governments in Italy, Spain and the Netherlands and on former communist nations like Poland, Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria — eager to score points with the Americans.

Apart from major powers such as Britain, many of the coalition countries have relatively weak militaries. Some are still recovering from the dislocation caused by the collapse of the Soviet bloc.