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US marines ready for final assault in Najaf
U.S. Marines said Wednesday they were preparing a final assault on Iraqi Shi'ite militia in the holy city of Najaf, after a radical cleric urged his men to keep fighting even if he was killed.
The warning came as sporadic clashes between U.S. troops and militia loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr echoed from the heart of Najaf, where hundreds have been killed or wounded in the past week around some of Iraq's holiest Shi'ite Muslim sites.
"Iraqi and U.S. forces are making final preparations as we get ready to finish this fight that the Moqtada militia started," Col. Anthony Haslam, commanding officer of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Najaf, said in a statement.
Haslam gave few details, but his threats and Sadr's defiance have raised the stakes in a battle that is the toughest test yet for the 6-week-old government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
In a sign of the growing anger against Allawi and the military action in Najaf, thousands of demonstrators in the southern city of Nassiriya called for him to step down and set fire to the local office of his political party.
Most of Sadr's men and the young cleric himself are holed up around Najaf's ancient Shi'ite cemetery or the adjoining Imam Ali Shrine. Storming such holy symbols could touch off a firestorm among Iraq's majority Shi'ite community.
The fighting between U.S. forces and Sadr's Mehdi Army in Najaf is part of a broader Shi'ite uprising in at least seven southern and central cities.
Despite the tightening noose around his men and growing pressure from Allawi, Sadr has refused to surrender.
"Keep fighting even if you see me a prisoner or a martyr. God willing you will be victorious," Sadr said in a statement.
In fresh violence elsewhere, at least six Iraqis were killed and 10 wounded when a bomb exploded in a market just north of Baghdad, hospital sources said. Officials had no further details on the explosion in Khan Bani Saad village.
Clashes also broke out in Baghdad's Shi'ite slum district.
The Shi'ite unrest has disrupted Iraq's vital oil exports and triggered a spike in world prices.
Iraq's exports were running at a reduced rate Wednesday as engineers repaired a sabotaged pipeline feeding the country's southern terminals, oil officials and a shipping agent said.
Oil prices held strong near record highs. U.S. light crude was up 11 cents to $44.61 a barrel, below Tuesday's $45.04.
SPLIT OVER NAJAF
The crisis in Najaf also appears to have created cracks in Allawi's administration after deputy president Ibrahim Jaafari urged U.S. troops to leave the city to end the fighting.
"I call for multinational forces to leave Najaf and for only Iraqi forces to remain there," Jaafari said in remarks broadcast on Al Jazeera television Wednesday.
"Iraqi forces can administer Najaf to end this phenomenon of violence in this city that is holy to all Muslims." U.S. forces have been pounding Sadr's militiamen with warplanes and helicopters for days. Marines have cordoned off the holy site. The U.S. military statement said Marines, Army soldiers and Iraqi National Guards were conducting joint exercises in preparation for major assaults against the militia in Najaf. Sadr said he still wanted Iraq to remain united and thanked "those who tried to resolve the crisis peacefully." In the past 24 hours, at least 30 Iraqis have been killed and 219 wounded in five cities including Baghdad, the Health Ministry said Wednesday. The figure did not include Najaf. U.S. forces say they have killed 360 Sadr loyalists so far in Najaf, home to 600,000 people some 100 miles south of Baghdad. Sadr's spokesmen say far fewer have died during the second rebellion by the militia in four months. MORE FIGHTING IN BAGHDAD Fighting erupted again in a Baghdad slum district called Sadr City where armed fighters have roamed at will. Two U.S. tanks thrust into the suburb, pursued by militiamen who fired at least one rocket-propelled grenade at the vehicles. In the southern town of Amara, British troops backed by planes launched an offensive against Shi'ite fighters overnight that the Mehdi Army said killed 10 militiamen. A British military spokesman said two British soldiers were wounded. The latest fighting raises questions about what role Sadr wants to play in postwar Iraq, especially ahead of landmark elections scheduled for January. Allawi's attempts to bring Sadr into the political fold appear to have failed, for now. Aged about 30 and a prominent figure in a revered clerical dynasty, he does not speak for all Iraq's Shi'ites but his tough anti-U.S. rhetoric has won him many admirers and swelled the ranks of his Mehdi militia. In response to deputy president Jaafari's comments, spokesmen for the prime minister, president and the U.S. military appeared surprised but had no immediate reaction. Jaafari is a respected politician who heads the Shi'ite Muslim Dawa Party, one of the largest Muslim groups in Iraq. |
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