The forces of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in this holy Shiite city and neighboring Kufa braced Saturday for an American assault, with hundreds of men with assault rifles roaming the streets and guarding makeshift checkpoints. In anticipation of violence and because of a major religious occasion this weekend, most stores in Najaf and Kufa were closed. Some owners emptied shops of goods, storing them at home for fear of looting amid any violence, residents said. No police or coalition troops from the Spanish contingent in charge of security in the two cities could be seen. U.S. commanders suggested they will move to seize Najaf and Kufa from al-Sadr's control after the Shiite ceremony of al-Arbaeen ends Sunday.
| Good idea. Make it very quick and very bloody. Lots of beturbanned bodies in the streets. That way you won't have to do it again for a few years, until they get in a new crop of stoopid. |
"I usually close my store at 10 at night or even later," said Salam Nasser, a grocer in Najaf's Prophet Street. "But for the past five days, I pull down my shutters at 4. We are frightened by all the tension."
| Have you considered throwing the bully boys out? I thought not. |
About 1,000 U.S. troops backed by tanks swept into the southern city of Kut on Wednesday to expell al-Sadr militiamen. They met relatively little resistance. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy chief of U.S. military operations, appeared confident Saturday that American troops can do the same when they move against al-Sadr elsewhere. "It is our assessment that the al-Sadr militia doesn't have the capability to conduct prolonged offensive operations," he told reporters in Baghdad. "Everytime his militia is faced with a determined resolve of Iraqi security forces or the coalition military forces, they typically will shoot a few rounds and run away."
| Kinda the hallmark of Arab military operations. But don't worry. They'll go back to skulking and beating up women and old people and holding up liquor stores. |
Sheik Qays al-Khazali, one of al-Sadr's top aides, promised a fight.
| "Yar! We'll murderlize 'em! Hrowf! Hrowf!" |
He also said he thought the risk of outrage among Muslims the world over would keep the U.S. military from battling al-Sadr's militia in Najaf and Kufa — two cities with major Shiite holy sites. "Frankly, we don't think that the occupation armies will have the audacity to do that," he told journalists at one of the movement's self-styled Islamic courts in Najaf.
| "That means they'll sit back and wait while we make faces and holler 'nanny-nanny boo-boo.' I hope." |
Al-Khazali, 30, and other al-Sadr supporters often wear a white coffin shroud —a Shiite custom to signal readiness for death — during Friday prayers as al-Sadr delivers sermons at Kufa. "We are happy to die defending our leader," he told The Associated Press.
| I'm sure the Marines will be happy to kill you, too. |
Najaf and Kufa are mostly made up of intricate networks of twisting alleys lined by small houses, meaning U.S. troops could face deadly urban fighting that could last for days. Also, Al-Sadr's forces are deployed near the cities' Shiite shrines, and would have the advantage of fighting on their home turf.
| Now, careful not to venture too far from those shrines, lads! |
Some two dozen heavily armed gunmen stood guard Saturday outside al-Sadr's office on an alley near the shrine of Imam Ali, a revered Shiite saint. They occasionally sang and danced, holding their rifles aloft, and chanted slogans expressing their readiness to die for al-Sadr, who is said to be holed up inside his office.
| Oooh! Slogans! You can tell a fearsome militarty machine by its selection of fine slogans. |
Other senior Shiite clerics in the city — most of whom eye al-Sadr's militancy with concern — were also bunkered down behind intensified security.
| ... not wanting to get splattered themselves when it hits the fan. |
Guards of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, erected a metal barricade in front of the alley where he lives and hung a black curtain over the alley's entrance. At least six armed men stood guard there, three times the usual number. |