The radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr was reported on Wednesday night to have accepted a peace deal that could end the violent two-week uprising in Najaf and see his militia leave the city’s Imam Ali Shrine.
Al-Sadr’s spokesperson confirmed that the cleric had accepted a proposal from the Iraqi national conference to pull his fighters out of the holy city and turn his militia into a political movement.
But there was scepticism whether al-Sadr’s offer was genuine or merely a negotiating tactic to forestall an imminent all-out attack on the shrine by Iraqi government forces, which were fighting the cleric’s militia last night.
Fighting also flared in al-Sadr’s Baghdad stronghold known as Sadr City, where the United States military said it had killed more than 50 Shia fighters.
Hours before the apparent deal was announced, the Iraqi defence minister demanded the immediate surrender of the Mehdi Army militia and said that his soldiers were preparing to attack it.
Using bellicose language, Hazim al-Shaalan warned that he would ”teach them a lesson they will never forget”.
With fighting raging all across Najaf on Wednesday, Shaalan said al-Sadr’s supporters had just a ”few hours” to surrender and get out of the golden-domed shrine.
If they failed to comply, Iraqi troops would storm the mosque complex, he warned, supported by overwhelming US air power. US troops would not enter the building.
”They [the militia] have a chance. In the next few hours they have to surrender themselves and their weapons,” Shaalan said after a meeting in Najaf with local officials.
”We are in the process of completing all our military preparations. We will teach them a lesson they will never forget. It will be Iraqis who enter the shrine … there will be no American role in this, except giving air protection and protecting some roads leading to the shrine.”
Explosions and gunfire echoed through the streets of Najaf’s old city on Wednesday as US forces and al-Sadr’s fighters exchanged fire. The director of Najaf’s main hospital, Falah al-Muhana, said 29 people had been killed or wounded.
Al-Sadr’s apparent acceptance of the peace plan followed his refusal to meet eight delegates from the national conference who had travelled to Najaf to see him on Tuesday.
The delegates told the cleric’s aides they would offer him and his fighters an amnesty from prosecution if they abandoned their fight.
On Wednesday one delegate flourished a letter from al-Sadr’s Baghdad office, saying he had agreed to all their demands.
”Moqtada al-Sadr has agreed on the conditions set by the national conference,” Safiya al-Suhail, an independent Shia delegate, told about 1 100 leading Iraqis during an unscheduled fourth-day of the conference, which was called to elect an interim national assembly.
Sheikh Hassan al-Athari, an official at al-Sadr’s office in Baghdad, later confirmed that the cleric had agreed to the plan, but said he wanted the delegation to return to Najaf to negotiate how it would be implemented and to ensure that his militants would not be arrested. He said al-Sadr had other, more minor conditions, but did not elaborate.
Al-Sadr has made contradictory statements in the past and a previous ceasefire collapsed earlier this month.
The uprising in Najaf has plunged the interim government and its prime minister, Ayad Allawi, into its worst crisis so far. Allawi is acutely aware that any assault on the Imam Ali Shrine — or the death of al-Sadr in battle — would provoke a violent uprising in the Shia cities of southern Iraq.
But it is clear he is increasingly impatient with the radical cleric, who has comprehensively upstaged the national conference, which is supposed to be about moving Iraq towards democracy.
On Wednesday Allawi’s office accused al-Sadr’s men of laying mines around the shrine. Other ministers said an attack on the shrine would send a tough message to insurgents.
”This will be a civilised lesson for those in Falluja, Samarra, Mosul, Yusufiyah or Basra. There is no lenience … with those people,” state minister Qassim Dawoud said.
The Iraqi health ministry said on Wednesday night that 21 people had been killed in clashes in Baghdad, Basra, Diwaniya and Najaf, and dozens wounded in the past 24 hours.
Iraqi militants threatened to kill a US journalist apparently captured last week unless US forces retreat from Najaf, al-Jazeera television reported early on Thursday. – Guardian Unlimited Â