| John Burns article, updates the situation. EFL |
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 7 - American marines drove deeper into the heart of the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Saturday as they fought Moktada al-Sadr's rebel militiamen, and there was little sign that American commanders, who said they were taking orders from the new Iraqi government, intended to heed appeals for a cease-fire from clerics and others claiming to represent Mr. Sadr.
In three days of fighting, including mostly sporadic battles on Saturday, the marines and supporting units from the new American-trained Iraqi security forces have pushed well into the old city, an area the Americans had avoided in their months of on-and-off fighting with the Mahdi Army, Mr. Sadr's black-uniformed militia. The main battleground has been an ancient cemetery alongside the Imam Ali mosque, a golden-domed shrine that is one of the holiest places for the world's Shiite Muslims. The leader of Iraqi forces in the fight, Gen. Ghalib Hadi al-Jazaery, said Saturday that his troops had surrounded Mr. Sadr's house in Najaf in an attempt to capture him, but that the cleric was gone.
Much hangs on the Najaf fighting, and on lower-intensity skirmishes in the past 72 hours in other urban areas across central and southern Iraq, where Mr. Sadr's firebrand populism attracts support among young, mostly impoverished Shiites. The central question appears to be whether the decision to confront the militiamen, and to do it in an area of the highest religious sensitivities, will win the support of Iraq's Shiite majority or provoke a potentially crippling backlash against the interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, which took formal power from the Americans when the country resumed its sovereignty on June 28.
On Saturday, Mr. Allawi gave a news conference in Baghdad in which he appeared intent on reinforcing his appeal to Iraqis as the strongman many have said they wanted during the 15 months of lawlessness and insurgency that followed the American invasion last year. He turned aside appeals for a cease-fire, saying prisoners taken during the fighting included "more than 1,000 criminals," at least 400 of whom had been released from prisons under an amnesty declared by Saddam Hussein six months before he was toppled from power.
"What has occurred in Najaf is pitiful," the 59-year-old prime minister said. Referring to the militiamen, he continued: "These attacks have aimed at destabilizing the government. These people are trying to deprive our people of their freedom and progress. Our country has gone through too many wars, and too much hardship, and I'm confident our people will choose the path towards peace and prosperity."
Specifically, Mr. Allawi described the fighting as an attempt to undermine the new government's efforts to improve security, to strengthen the flagging economy and to prepare for parliamentary elections scheduled by the end of January. He suggested at the news conference that the militiamen fighting in Najaf, whom the Americans say have mostly worn the black outfits of Mr. Sadr's militia, might not be Sadr loyalists at all, but "people using his name."
In Tehran, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, condemned the new wave of violence in Iraq, especially in the Shiite holy city, The Associated Press reported. "The United States has reached a dead-end in Iraq and is acting like a wolf caught in a trap," he said, "trying to terrify some by either brawling or showing its claws. But the Iraqis' will and determination will not let the U.S. gulp down a big morsel such as Iraq," he was quoted as saying. |
