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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Iraqis try to negotiate end to deadly conflict


A U.S. soldier moves a donkey away from an armored vehicle Friday during a cease-fire held for negotiations with Muqtada al-Sadr in the holy city of Najaf, Iraq. 
 (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Henry Chu and Edmund Sanders Los Angeles Times

NAJAF, Iraq – A day after launching a major offensive, U.S. and Iraqi forces halted their advance on militiamen loyal to rebel Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr while negotiators worked toward a settlement of the nine-day conflict that has claimed scores, and perhaps hundreds, of lives in this holy city.

The U.S. military said that at the request of the interim Iraqi government, a temporary truce went into effect Friday morning to give the government and al-Sadr’s aides time to hammer out a political resolution. Meanwhile, in several other cities across Iraq, thousands of anti-American protesters took to the streets to press for an end to the fighting here.

U.S. and Iraqi forces loosened the cordon they had set up a day earlier around the Imam Ali shrine, one of Shiite Islam’s most sacred sites, where al-Sadr and as many as 1,000 fighters of his Al Mahdi militia are believed to be holed up. The cleric’s deputies said he suffered minor shrapnel wounds early Friday, but Iraqi and American officials disputed the claim, which could not be verified independently.

The attempt to reach a negotiated settlement comes after repeated vows by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and al-Sadr to fight to the finish.

Al-Sadr kept up some of his die-hard rhetoric late Friday, without appearing explicitly to call off the cease-fire. The bearded young cleric, who has become a hero to impoverished Shiite youths, urged Allawi to resign and compared his government to that of toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.

“I will not leave this holy city,” a spokesman quoted al-Sadr as telling chanting supporters inside the Imam Ali Mosque. “We will remain here, defending the holy shrines till victory or martyrdom.”

Allawi, faced with his new government’s most serious challenge, dispatched his national security adviser for talks Thursday after violence spiraled out from Najaf to engulf other cities.

Although eager to show themselves capable of crushing Iraq’s bloody Shiite and Sunni insurgencies, Allawi and the United States want to avoid turning al-Sadr into a martyr in the eyes of his followers or harming the sacred mosque, which would enrage Shiites the world over.

Conditions for peace

Friday afternoon, hours before his fiery remarks inside the shrine, al-Sadr appeared to bend on his refusal to participate in Iraq’s fledgling political system, which he has dismissed as a U.S.-invented sham.

An aide outlined al-Sadr’s conditions for a peace agreement, including a withdrawal by both sides from Najaf’s Old City, whose sacred sites would be turned over to local religious authorities to administer. Al-Sadr’s militia then would become a political movement and lay down its weapons “except for self-defense,” the aide said.

The question of disarming al-Sadr’s fighters might hold the key to any negotiated settlement. Allawi – and the U.S. military forces on which he relies – is unlikely to agree to a solution that would allow al-Sadr’s loyalists to remain well-armed, as occurred in June when the United States and al-Sadr came to an uneasy truce to end a similar uprising. Many Iraqi and American officials believe that the cease-fire merely postponed the showdown over who controls Najaf while allowing al-Sadr’s militia to regroup and stockpile weapons.

Protesters fill streets

Mass protests demanding an end to the fighting – and blaming Allawi and the United States for provoking it – filled the streets of cities across Iraq on Friday, including Mosul in the north, Fallujah in the west and Karbala in the south. In Baghdad, the capital, several thousand pro-al-Sadr demonstrators gathered outside the heavily fortified Green Zone, where the U.S. Embassy and Iraqi government offices are located.

Protesters labeled Allawi a stooge of the United States, although American officials have taken pains to stress that the prime minister has the final say on how far to press the military campaign against al-Sadr. The Iraqi government said the United States is not involved in negotiations to end the standoff.

Although heated and at times violent, Friday’s demonstrations afforded a respite from the clashes that Iraqi officials said Thursday killed 157 Iraqi civilians, police and soldiers and wounded 600 within a 24-hour period.

The peace talks in Najaf left U.S. and Iraqi forces in a holding pattern Friday after they mounted an offensive the day before to close in on the ancient shrine and isolate al-Sadr. After expressing their intent to crush the Al Mahdi militia, U.S. planners have settled for clamping a chokehold around al-Sadr’s forces while taking care not to target the religiously and politically sensitive mosque.

During Friday’s truce, U.S. troops continued to maintain a loose cordon around the shrine and Old City but pulled back slightly from the eastern edge of the city and allowed people to pass through.

As of Friday evening, military officials reported no clashes or mortar strikes, but the main police station was hit by small-arms fire. In contrast to Thursday’s combat, when they went on the offensive and picked fights to draw out militants, U.S. troops watched from afar as al-Sadr supporters, some toting guns, staged a street protest.

U.S. officials said that Iraqi forces, backed up by U.S. troops, had raided a mosque on the outskirts of the nearby town of Kufa before dawn Friday, where militants were hiding. Several militiamen were killed and eight were detained, the military said.