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Fierce fighting in Iraq's Najaf, Sadr defiant
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-08-19 23:42
Fierce fighting raged in the city of Najaf on Thursday after a rebel Shi'ite
cleric defied an Iraqi government threat to attack his stronghold in a holy
shrine and rejected demands that he end his uprising.
U.S. aircraft and tanks pounded the area around the Imam Ali Mosque soon
after Moqtada al-Sadr spurned the ultimatum from interim Prime Minister Iyad
Allawi. Thick smoke poured into the sky as the boom of dozens of explosions
shook the old city and automatic rifle fire crackled through the air.
A U.S. Army Bradley
armored vehicle patrols past a crushed car near a Shi'ite militant
position in the southern Iraq (news - web sites) city of Najaf, August 19,
2004. Iraq's government warned Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr he would
face a military strike within hours unless he ended an uprising, disarmed
his militia and quit a shrine in the city of Najaf.
[AP] |
But fighting eased an hour later,
indicating the government's threatened offensive was not yet under way at the
mosque where Sadr and his Mehdi Army militia have holed up.
Away from the mosque area, three mortar bombs hit a Najaf police station in
quick succession, killing seven police and wounding 21 others, police said.
Police said Mehdi militiamen fired the salvo.
Sadr reverted to his trademark defiance after two days in which he had
appeared to be willing to disarm his militia and leave Iraq's holiest Shi'ite
shrine.
Asked about the latest government demands, Sheikh Ahmed al-Sheibani, a senior
Sadr aide and Mehdi Army commander, told reporters in the mosque: "It is very
clear that we reject them."
A building explodes
as the first bomb drops during a U.S. aerial assault on insurgent targets
in Najaf, Iraq, Thursday, Aug. 19, 2004. High-altitude jet fighters
dropped four bombs in the area. [AP] |
The
two-week rebellion has badly dented Allawi's authority, killed hundreds and
rattled world oil markets. Oil prices hit a new record of $47.96 for a barrel of
U.S. light crude.
Iraqi Minister of State Kasim Daoud told a news conference in Najaf the
government had exhausted all peaceful means to persuade Sadr to back down and
was determined to impose a military solution unless the cleric surrendered.
He said the scion of a respected Shi'ite clerical dynasty was facing his
"final hours" before an attack.
The second bomb
explodes on the first building targeted during a U.S. aerial assault on
insurgents in Najaf, Iraq, Thursday, Aug. 19, 2004. High-altitude jet
fighters dropped four bombs in the area.
[AP] |
Daoud vowed to liberate the Imam Ali
Mosque but declined to say whether the government would storm the site itself.
Any such assault could provoke outrage among Iraq's majority Shi'ite
community, especially if U.S. forces are involved.
U.S. troops in Baghdad overran the firebrand cleric's stronghold in the
sprawling Shi'ite slum of Sadr City with tanks and armored vehicles, meeting
little resistance, witnesses said. They later withdrew to the outskirts of the
area.
SKEPTICISM
Sadr said on Wednesday his militia forces would disarm and leave the mosque
if a truce was agreed with 2,000 U.S. marines encircling the city, who have
pounded his militia for two weeks with warplanes, helicopter gunships and tanks.
He made his apparent concession after the government threatened to teach the
Mehdi militia "a lesson they will never forget."
His subsequent posturing aroused skepticism among U.S. officials that he
would back down.
"I don't think we can trust al-Sadr. I think we have to see action, not just
words," National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told Fox News.
Supporters of
radical Iraqi Shi'ite leader Moqtada al Sadr chant inside Najaf's Imam Ali
shrine, August 19, 2004. [Reuters] |
Most
Najaf residents too were skeptical fighting would end.
"What peace? I don't believe it. Look at this hell," said Talib Moussa, a
35-year-old labourer.
U.S. armored vehicles were deployed along the main roads in Baghdad's Sadr
City, a slum of two million people where fierce fighting has broken out in the
past two weeks.
U.S. forces said they had killed 50 militiamen on Wednesday in their push
into Sadr City.
Sadr has more than once vowed to fight to the death in Najaf and has proved a
wily strategist in past confrontations.
Despite the plump, bearded cleric's youth -- he is about 30 -- the latest
rebellion has transformed him into the most recognizable face of resistance to
the U.S. presence in Iraq.
One U.S. marine was killed in action in Najaf on Wednesday, the U.S. military
said. More than 700 U.S. troops have died in action since the start of last
year's U.S.-led invasion.
Al Jazeera television reported that Iraqi militants who said they captured a
U.S. journalist last week had threatened to kill him within 48 hours unless U.S.
forces left Najaf.
It showed footage of a man with a mustache kneeling in front of five masked
men holding rifles. The channel identified the man as Micah Garen and the group
as the Martyrs Brigades.
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