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Iraqi peace mission snubbed by rebel cleric
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-08-18 10:49 Radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Tuesday refused
to meet an Iraqi peace delegation because of "American aggression" as U.S.
troops pounded militia positions in Najaf near the country's holiest Islamic
sites.
The failure to hold face-to-face talks raises the possibility of a U.S.-led
offensive to crush Sadr's Mehdi Army in the city, scene of 13 days of fierce
fighting that has killed hundreds.
Braving U.S. bombardment and militia sniper fire, the group of eight
political and religious leaders drove to al-Sadr's office seeking to end a
rebellion in the holy city and other parts of Iraq.
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] |
A Sadr
aide told reporters accompanying the delegation that Sadr refused to meet them
"because of continued aggression by the Americans."
Another aide in Baghdad, Sheikh Mahmoud al-Soudani, said: "He declined to
meet them due to security reasons and heavy shelling in Najaf."
The delegation had met Sadr's top aides and waited for the young cleric for
three hours at the city's holiest shrine, the Imam Ali Mosque, where many of
Sadr's militiamen are holed up.
Sadr's top aide Sheikh Ali Smeisim, who met with the delegation, tried to
soften the impact of Sadr's failure to show up.
An Iraqi girl, carried by her uncle, grieves
after losing her mother and sister during clashes between U.S. forces and
militiamen royal to radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the eastern
Baghdad's suburb of al-Sadr August 17, 2004. Fierce clashes erupted in
Sadr City late August 16, 2004, following an afternoon of battles after
militia exploded a bomb under a U.S. tank.
[Reuters] |
"What we heard (from the
delegation) contains positive indications. We are willing to discuss them," he
said. He had told the delegation that Sadr was at a "secret location" and would
come if the U.S. forces eased its noose around the shrines.
There were chaotic scenes when the delegation arrived inside the Imam Ali
shrine.
More than 1,000 young men shouted, beat their chests, raised their fists in
the air and chanted "long live Moqtada." Explosions and gunfire from the nearby
vast cemetery could be heard.
After the snub the group drove to the governor's headquarters as fighting
raged in the cemetery, where U.S. gunship helicopters fired on rebels who
responded by firing mortars and machine guns at U.S. and Iraqi government
forces. Witnesses said they later returned to Baghdad.
The delegation flew in on U.S. Black Hawk helicopters from a meeting in
Baghdad where 1,300 delegates sought to select an interim national assembly to
oversee the government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
HEATED DEBATES
Heated debates over Najaf and selecting members to the assembly have
dominated the unprecedented gathering in Baghdad, a step on Iraq's tortured road
to democracy.
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 conference, scheduled to end on
Tuesday, was extended to Wednesday after many delegates opposed a list of 81
candidates presented to the meeting by the pro-U.S. interim government,
conference chairman Fouad Massoum said.
The remaining 19 members will come from the Governing Council, a 25-member
body appointed by the U.S.-led occupation before the June handover of power.
"If we stay here longer you will not be able to go home," Massoum said,
referring to the shaky security situation.
Once appointed, a 100-member national council will oversee the interim
government until January elections. It will be able to veto legislation with a
two-thirds majority, approve the 2005 budget and appoint a new prime minister or
president should either quit or die in office.
Allawi needs to quell the Shi'ite rebellion that has hit eight central and
southern cities and undermined his authority just seven weeks after he took over
from U.S.-led occupiers.
But he is walking a dangerous tightrope, with passions in the majority
Shi'ite country at boiling point over U.S. troops fighting near holy sites in
Najaf.
In Baghdad, insurgents fired a shell into a busy street, killing at least
seven people including two children. The attack wounded 42 people, leaving pools
of blood on sidewalks.
In London, the Ministry of Defense said a British soldier was killed during
clashes with Shi'ite militiamen in Iraq's southern oil port city of Basra on
Tuesday.
A Reuters photographer was wounded in the leg while covering the fighting in
Najaf. The photographer, an Iraqi, was treated for bullet fragment wounds at a
U.S. combat hospital and later released.
A U.S. marine was killed in action in a restive Sunni Muslim area west of
Baghdad on Tuesday. A U.S. military statement said the marine, assigned to the
Marine Expeditionary Force, was killed in al-Anbar province "while conducting
security and stability operations."
The Anbar province includes the cities of Falluja and Ramadi where Sunni
insurgents launch almost daily attacks on U.S. and Iraqi government forces.
At least 704 U.S. servicemen and women have been killed in combat since the
U.S.-led invasion of Iraq last year.
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