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Najaf fighting intensifies amid peace push
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-08-18 10:03
Iraqi delegates delivered a peace proposal to aides of Muqtada al-Sadr in
Najaf on Tuesday, but the militant cleric refused to meet with them as
explosions, gunfire and a U.S. air strike on the sprawling cemetery echoed
across the holy city.
A militiaman loyal to Shiite Muslim cleric
Moqtada Sadr takes position as a car burns in the southern Iraqi city of
Basra after three British civilian vehicles were hit by a roadside bomb,
causing no casualties. [AP Photo] |
The delegation was kept waiting for three hours at the Imam Ali shrine, where
some of al-Sadr's fighters have holed up, but were not allowed to meet with the
cleric and left Najaf after talking with his aides.
Al-Sadr did not show up because of the "heavy shelling from the planes and
tanks of the U.S. forces," said an aide, Ahmed al-Shaibany.
Both the mediators and Al-Sadr's deputies described their talks as positive.
Al-Shaibany said the delegation would return Wednesday to meet with al-Sadr
himself. Delegate Rajah Khozi said she hoped the group would be able to return
Wednesday or Thursday, but there were no immediate plans for such a trip.
The peace mission was organized by the Iraqi National Conference, a gathering
of more than 1,000 religious, political and civic leaders that was extended late
Tuesday into a fourth day because of disagreements over how to elect a council
that is to act as a watchdog over the interim government until elections in
January.
American soldiers patrol the
streets of the besieged city of Najaf, in southern Iraq Tuesday Aug. 17,
2004. A U.S. warplane bombed near Najaf's vast cemetery as fighting with
Shiite militants intensified Tuesday. [AP
Photo] |
The delegation's peace initiative demanded that al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia
disarm, leave the Imam Ali shrine and become a political group in exchange for
amnesty.
"This is not a negotiation. This is a friendly mission to convey the message
of the National Conference," said delegation head Hussein al-Sadr, a distant
relative of the renegade Shiite Muslim cleric.
Al-Sadr aides said they welcomed the mission, but not the peace proposal.
"The demands of the committee are impossible. The shrine compound must be in
the hands of the religious authorities. They are asking us to leave Najaf while
we are the sons of Najaf," said one aide, Sheik Ali Smeisim.
The delegation, which had planned to be in Najaf only for a day, flew back to
Baghdad to return to the National Conference.
The fighting in Najaf, especially near the revered Imam Ali shrine, where
al-Sadr's militants are holed up, has angered many among the country's majority
Shiite population and cast a pall over the conference, which had been intended
to project an image of amity and inclusiveness on the road to democracy.
The meeting is being held under tight security and two nearby explosions
rattled the meeting hall Tuesday, slightly wounding a soldier and a civilian
security guard, the military said.
Several miles away, a mortar round slammed into a busy Baghdad commercial
district, killing seven people and wounding 47, officials said. The blast
charred cars and shattered the front of a barbershop on al-Rasheed street,
leaving blood mixed with glass and metal shards on the road.
The mortar shell was not aimed at the conference but rather was a routine
attack intended "to create chaos in the country," said Sabah Kadhim, a spokesman
for the Iraq's Interior Ministry.
U.S. Marines tanks guard a road on
the edge of Najaf's old town August 17, 2004. Iraqi political and
religious leaders trying to end a radical Shi'ite uprising flew into
Najaf, where U.S. troops and militia fought pitched battles near the
country's holiest Islamic sites. [Reuters] |
In volatile Anbar Province, a Marine with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force
was killed in action Tuesday during "security and stability operations," the
military reported. The Marine's name was being withheld until relatives could be
notified.
In eastern Baghdad, insurgents attacked U.S. troops with rocket-propelled
grenades and bombs Monday, killing one U.S. soldier and wounding several others,
the military announced Tuesday.
Al-Sadr militiamen also fought a series of gunbattles with British troops in
the southern city of Basra, with one British soldier and one militant reported
killed. Sixty-five British soldiers have died since the start of the Iraq war.
In the volatile city of Fallujah, a U.S. warplane fired a missile at a house,
killing two people and injuring one, said Dr. Adel Mohammed Moustafa of Fallujah
General Hospital. The U.S. military had no immediate comment.
The 16-month-old insurgency, marked by car bombings, ambushes, kidnappings,
sabotage and other attacks, has kept the country unstable and badly hampered
reconstruction efforts.
But the latest round of fighting in Najaf, which began Aug. 5 after the
breakdown of a two-month cease-fire, is presenting the greatest challenge yet to
interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's fledgling government.
Clashes persisted even after the National Conference's eight-member peace
delegation — seven of them Shiites — arrived aboard a pair of U.S. Army Black
Hawk helicopters Tuesday afternoon.
Explosions and gunfire shook the streets throughout the day and U.S. troops
entered the flash-point Old City neighborhood, where al-Sadr's Mahdi Army is
based.
A U.S. warplane caused an explosion in the huge cemetery, site of many
clashes between U.S. forces and Shiite militants. U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Thomas V.
Johnson said the plane fired "one precision guided missile on a building in the
cemetery where Muqtada militiamen with RPGs were attacking U.S. soldiers."
The U.S. military says the fighting in Najaf has killed hundreds of
militants, though the militants deny that. Eight U.S. soldiers and at least 40
Iraqi police have been killed as well.
The fighting Tuesday killed three civilians and wounded 15, rescue worker
Sadiq al-Shaibany said. Two of those were killed when gunfire hit the office of
the Badr Brigades, the militant wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite political group that is not involved in the
fighting, said Ridha Taqi, an official of the group.
The National Conference, originally scheduled to end Tuesday, was extended to
Wednesday because of a dispute over how to elect members of the Iraqi National
Council, which is to serve alongside the interim government.
The delegates were originally to vote on one slate of 81 potential members,
which would have had to garner 65 percent of the vote to become part of the new
council. However, some smaller parties felt they did not have enough of a voice
in the makeup of the slate, organizers said.
As a compromise, several slates will contend with each other Wednesday, with
the top two moving into a runoff, where the winning slate will become part of
the council.
"The most important thing here is balance, that there's balance at this
critical stage that we are in," said conference chairman Fuad Masoum.
The final 19 seats of the 100-member body will be filled by members of the
former U.S.-appointed Governing Council who were not included in the interim
government.
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