Home > Shi’ites’ uprising grows Sadr promises fight to death to drive out US
Shi’ites’ uprising grows Sadr promises fight to death to drive out US
by Open-Publishing - Wednesday 11 August 2004By Doug Struck
BAGHDAD — Defiant Shi’ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr yesterday rejected an appeal by Iraq’s prime minister to end fighting in Najaf, rallying his supporters to fight with him to "the last drop of my blood" as US and Iraqi forces encircled a shrine in the Shi’ite holy city.
Speaking publicly in the Imam Ali Shrine for the first time since clashes erupted in Najaf five days ago, Sadr said it was ’’an honor for me to fight the Americans." Referring to his militia force, which battled US and allied forces in the south during much of April and May, Sadr said: ’’I told the Mahdi Army that I’m one of them. I will not leave Najaf until the last drop of my blood. I will resist and they will resist with me."
His rebuff to Prime Minister Iyad Allawi — whom he compared to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel — appeared to doom the Iraqi leader’s efforts bring Sadr and his followers into the political process.
’’We are still trying to make some efforts to make him say yes" to requests to end fighting in the southern city, acknowledged Georges Sada, a spokesman for Allawi. ’’It seems his message is the opposite."
The turmoil has spread to other parts of the country, including Baghdad’s restless Sadr City section, where residents rejected a government curfew, and the southern port of Basra, where a British soldier was killed.
Fighting and the threat of sabotage prompted Iraq to stop pumping oil to Basra through its vital southern pipeline.
’’We are losing a lot of money," Sada said. ’’We are trying to make our people understand that this violence affects the plans of reconstruction of the country."
Forty miles north of Baghdad in Balad Ruz, explosives packed into a station wagon detonated at the home of the province’s deputy governor, Aquil Hamid Adili. The blast killed six policemen and wounded 17, including Adili and his 9-year-old son. In eastern Baghdad, a ranking police officer, Brigadier Raed Mohammed Khudair, was kidnapped.
Also yesterday, a roadside bomb blew up next to a bus on a main street in Khalidiyah, 70 miles west of Baghdad, killing four passengers and wounding four others, officials said.
The Defense Department yesterday identified two Marines and a solider killed last week in Najaf: Sergeant Yadir G. Reynoso, 27, of Wapato, Wash.; Corporal Roberto Abad, 22, of Los Angeles; and Private First Class Raymond J. Faulstich Jr., 24, of Leonardtown, Md. The Pentagon also released the name of Specialist Joshua I. Bunch, 23, of Hattiesburg, Miss., who died Friday in Baghdad in an attack on his vehicle.
The violence appeared linked to the situation in Najaf, about 100 miles south of Baghdad. Explosions and gunfire have resounded since Thursday near the shrine where the remains of Ali, son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed, are buried, and at the enormous cemetery nearby.
A Marine spokesman said insurgents had fled the cemetery after an assault Friday. But when US forces pulled back from the area, the insurgents moved back in.
’’They are conducting the same tactics — launching attacks from the cemetery and surrounding areas, only to immediately run back and seek sanctuary in the mosques and buildings surrounding the Imam Ali Shrine," the spokesman said.
US and Iraqi forces ’’will not allow them to seek sanctuary and hijack this holy cemetery from the people of Iraq," Colonel Anthony M. Haslam, commanding officer of the Marines in Najaf, said in a statement.
Iraqi and US forces attempted yesterday to take control of the cemetery, and officials said the area was loosely surrounded, cutting off the Mahdi Army’s ability to send reinforcements. There are about 2,000 US Marines and nearly 2,000 Iraqi security forces in the area, military officials say.
A senior US military official said American forces have refrained from attacking Sadr’s fighters inside the shrine but that such caution may be abandoned if the violence continues.
’’The governor of Najaf has given approval that, if necessary, these types of operations can be conducted," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. ’’The Mahdi militia are organizing and conducting attacks from there. This use of the holy site to conduct armed operations is contrary to international law."
Sada, the prime minister’s spokesman, confirmed that. ’’We don’t want to make it tough in a holy city, in Najaf, with the shrines there," he said. ’’But at least, we can’t let them make the shrines shelters and depots for weapons."
The governor of Najaf, Adnan Zaurufi, declared a 24-hour cease-fire in the city, but a spokesman for Sadr rejected it and clashes continued last night. ’’We have nothing to do with the truce," said the spokesman, Ahmed Sahibani. ’’We didn’t start the fighting. If they stop, we will stop."
Reports of casualties varied widely. A US military spokesman said an estimated 360 insurgents, four American soldiers, and four Iraqi security troops had been killed as of Sunday. Nineteen US troops and 12 Iraqi security troops have been wounded.
Sadr’s spokesman have said the toll among militia fighters is far lower. Sahibani said five from the Mahdi Army were killed and 15 others wounded yesterday.
Allawi has attempted to persuade Sadr to transform his armed movement into a political party and run in elections planned for January. Sunday, the prime minister made a surprise visit to Najaf to appeal for an end to the fighting. His appeal was coupled with threats that the opposition would be crushed if it did not comply.
Sadr responded with similarly tough talk yesterday in his appearance at the Imam Ali Shrine.
Sadr dismissed Allawi’s visit, comparing it to the inflammatory visit to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, or Noble Sanctuary, in September 2000 by Sharon, then leader of Israel’s right-wing opposition. ’’Sharon visited Jerusalem, and the Palestinian resistance got stronger . . . the same here. The resistance will be stronger after Allawi’s visit to Najaf," said Sadr.