Iraq's radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr refused on Tuesday to meet a delegation of Iraqi political and religious leaders who want him to call off his uprising in the holy city of Najaf and other areas. A Sadr aide told reporters accompanying the delegation Sadr could not meet them "because of continued aggression by the Americans." The failure to hold face-to-face talks raises the possibility of a U.S.-led offensive to crush Sadr's Mehdi Army militia in the city. Another aide in Baghdad, Sheikh Mahmoud al-Soudani, said: "The delegation met Sadr's representatives but 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. "We had a feeling that the office of Moqtada al-Sadr is positive," Sheikh Hussein al-Sadr, head of the eight-member delegation said. "The message reached Moqtada al-Sadr. We hope there will be better circumstances to meet with him." The delegation then drove to the governor's headquarters as fighting raged in a nearby cemetery, where U.S. gunship helicopters fired on rebel positions who responded by firing mortars and machine guns at U.S. and Iraqi government forces. It was not known if they would spend the night there or return to Baghdad. |