Politics

After Multiple Air Strikes Najaf Calls Truce

U.S. Launches Fierce Air Attack in the City of Najaf
L'express.mu
Around 500 Iraqi troops have been deployed around the mosque. Heavy fighting erupted near a sacred mosque in the Iraqi city of Najaf yesterday as US and Iraqi forces tightened their grip around Shi’ite militants after a threatened assault on the shrine did not go ahead. American tanks and troops advanced closer to the Imam Ali mosque after US aircraft unleashed their firepower overnight on rebels who have defied the interim government by refusing to leave the shrine and end a bloody three-week rebellion. Gunfire rocked the area and smoke rise high into the sky. ... Overnight, a US AC-130 gunship joined an attack on militia positions. The barrage left Najaf’s old city shrouded in smoke that concealed the bright floodlighting of the shrine. Some 2,000 US marines backed by aircraft and tanks have done most of the fighting, pounding rebels whose main weapons are AK-47 assault rifles, rocket propelled grenades and mortars.

Najaf Governor Declares 24-Hour Truce
Xinhua News Agency
NAJAF -- The governor of Najaf announced a 24-hour truce would begin in the holy city upon the arrival of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani later on Thursday. "The government has decided to declare a 24-hour truce from Sistani's arrival in Najaf and to secure a way of communication between Moqtada al-Sadr's office and Sistani to facilitate talks," Adnan al-Zorfi told reporters. Al-Zorfi said the US-led Iraqi troops would withdraw slightly from their positions around the revered shrine to pave the way for Sadr's supporters to disarm and abandon their positions in the mausoleum. "If there is no agreement after 24 hours, the fighting will resume," he added. The truce was agreed upon during talks between Iraqi authorities and Sistani at a villa in the southern Iraqi city of Basra late Wednesday, according to the governor.

Sistani Heads to Najaf, Blasts at Nearby Mosque
Reuters
NAJAF, Iraq -- Iraq's most influential Shi'ite cleric headed for the battered city of Najaf on Thursday to try to persuade rebels holed up inside a sacred shrine to leave and end a three-week uprising that has killed hundreds. Just after Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani began his journey, explosions rocked the main mosque in Kufa, a town adjacent to Najaf, killing and wounding many people, a Shi'ite cleric at the scene told Reuters. The cause of the blasts was unclear, but Kufa is a key powerbase for radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose Mehdi Army militia has led the rebellion in Najaf. A Reuters photographer at a Kufa hospital said many casualties were being brought in. al-Sadr supporters accused U.S.-led forces of launching the Kufa attack. The U.S. army had no immediate comment.

27 Dead in Kufa Mosque Blast
Guardian Unlimited
A mortar attack on the main mosque in the Iraqi city of Kufa today killed 27 people and wounded 63 others, hospital officials and witnesses said. Thousands of people were crowded around the mosque at the time and ambulances raced to the scene to take scores of wounded to a nearby hospital. Dead bodies lay around the mosque compound, witnesses said. It was unclear who fired the mortars. "We were gathering outside and inside the mosque preparing to head to Najaf when two mortar shells landed, one inside the mosque and the other on the main gate," said Hani Hashem, bringing an injured friend to the hospital. "This is a criminal act. We just wanted to launch a peaceful demonstration."

Iraqi Police Seize Journalists in Najaf
Al-Jazeera
Iraqi policemen rounded up dozens of journalists at gunpoint in a Najaf hotel and took them to police headquarters before later releasing them. Firing their guns in the air, the dozen odd policemen, some masked, stormed into the rooms of journalists in the Najaf Sea hotel and forced them into vans and a truck. An AFP correspondent, who was also forced into a van, said the police pushed and pulled many reporters at gunpoint.

Al-Sistani Travels to Najaf;
Convoy Delayed by Crowds, AFP Says
Bloomberg
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's leading Shiite Muslim cleric, is being delayed by crowds along the route from Basra and he travels to Najaf to try to end three weeks of fighting in the city, Agence France-Presse said. Al-Sistani's vehicle, accompanied by Iraqi police and national guardsmen, was slowed to 20 kilometers-an-hour (12 miles- an-hour) as supporters greeted him along the highway, AFP reported, citing its reporter with the convoy. Basra lies 400 kilometers south of Najaf. Al-Sistani intends to present a plan to end fighting between the Mahdi Army militia of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition forces in Najaf.

Profile: Sistani, Crucial Person in Iraq
Xinhua News Agency
BEIJING -- Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top Shiite Muslim cleric, rarely speaks in public but wields leverage in shaping the future of postwar Iraq. His instructions come via supporters and aids. His white beard is familiar to most only from posters and banners his followers carry. But the power of his silence has been felt across Iraq. Former top US civil administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer had to heed Sistani's calls for elections to be held as soon as possible when tens of thousands of Iraqis took to the streets to support his demands. Bremer was forced to revise his political transition plans several times due to pressures from the Iranian-born cleric.

Iranian supreme leader voices
grief over bloodshed in Najaf
Xinhua News Agency
TEHRAN -- Iranian Supreme Leader Seyed AliKhamenei on Wednesday expressed grief over the bloodshed in the Iraqi holy city Najaf, the official IRNA news agency reported."I extend condolences of the Iranian nation to the Iraqination," Khamenei was quoted as saying, "The occupying powers have caused black and heart-rending tragedy in the Iraqi holy city," Khamenei said. "The vents in Najaf indicated that the Americans have decided to continue using force against Iraqi civilians. But, it is a mistake. It will absolutely fail and will cause deep gap between the Muslim world and the occupiers," Khamenei added.

Iran's Supreme Leader Warns US About Najaf Siege
Voice of America News, DC
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says the United States is facing what he called "decades of hatred" in the Islamic world because of the U.S.-led military siege in the Iraqi Shi'ite holy city of Najaf. Shi'ite Iran has opposed the war that toppled former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, and has expressed outrage at the U.S.-led attacks near Najaf's Imam Ali shrine. Wednesday, the ayatollah called the Najaf siege a "black and heart-rending tragedy."

Al-Sadr: Going for Broke?
World Press Review
A massive US-Iraqi military operation has been launched on Aug 12, and the battleground is the Shiite holy city of Najaf, where Al-Sadr is ensconced in the Imam Ali Shrine with his fighters. The offensive however will not result in a political weakening of the renegade leader. It will alter the nature of his movement -- a high number of casualties would energize the public support, which Al-Sadr could then galvanize in the form of protests as an alternative to an armed insurrection.

Neocons have Iran in their sights
An 'October Surprise'?
International Herald Tribune
The temperature has been rising between Washington and Iran over the latter's alleged efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Some former U.S. officials concerned with Middle Eastern policy suggest that when President George W. Bush must eventually explain what has gone wrong in Iraq, it might be convenient to blame Iran. Bush could accuse Iran of fostering the Islamic extremism responsible for U.S. frustration in Najaf and elsewhere, and of encouraging Shiite resistance to the occupation force and the new Iraq government the United States is trying to install. Blaming Iran would be a step up the escalation ladder. This scenario includes the possibility that escalation could get out of hand.

Martyrdom or Victory for Muqtada
Axis of Logic, United States
As another inevitable result of the “smoke them out” diplomacy of the Bush administration and Iraqi Premier Iyad Alawi, untold damage is being done in the Muslim world: US Apache helicopters and AC-130 gunships bombing the vast holy grounds of the Wadi al-Salam cemetery, while the main shopping street leading to the Imam Ali Shrine - as well as most of Najaf’s old city - lies in ruins. And in an overlapping graphic display, US forces now also occupy much of the 2-million-strong Sadr City, the vast Shi’ite slum in Baghdad.

Posted by Editor at August 26, 2004 06:28 AM