BAGHDAD, 15 August 2004 — Truce talks between Iraq’s interim government and Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr broke down yesterday as the US military claimed killing 50 insurgents in the Sunni town of Samarra in airstrikes on Friday night.
Iraq’s National Security Adviser Mouwaffaq Al-Rubaie did not say what led to the breakdown of talks to halt days of fighting in Najaf, adding that he was going to leave the city.
“I feel deep sorrow and regret to announce the failure of the efforts we have exerted to end the crisis in Iraq peacefully,” he said. “Our goal was to spare blood, preserve security and for the militias to put down their weapons.”
A statement issued by the Interior Ministry here later said the government had decided to resume the offensive against the insurgents.
A representative of Sadr blamed the failure on Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, saying he backed out at the last minute. “You have to know, we had agreed with Rubaie on all points but Allawi called him back and he ended the issue,” Ali Sumeisim, Sadr’s political representative, told Al-Jazeera television.
“This is a conspiracy to commit huge massacres in Iraq. The target is not only Sadr’s allies but everyone who rejects the occupation,” Sumeisim told the channel. “I call on Rubaie as a Muslim and an Arab to say the truth about why the talks collapsed,” he said.
Another Sadr spokesman said the cleric was prepared to accept a UN force in Iraq. “We prefer the UN to the (US-led) occupation forces, because Iraq is a member of the United Nations,” Sheikh Ahmed Al-Shaibani said.
“There is a big difference between the blue helmets (of UN troops) and the occupation troops.” Sadr is “ready to meet the UN representative if he requests (a meeting),” the spokesman added.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s special envoy to Iraq, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, arrived in Baghdad on Friday and held immediate talks with Allawi and President Ghazi Al-Yawar.
The envoy reiterated UN calls for a peaceful settlement to the fighting in Najaf, a spokesman said, reading a statement. Asked whether the United Nations was working to broker a peaceful solution to the Najaf fighting, the spokesman said only that the world body was ready to extend its good offices where they were welcome.
Militiamen remained in some streets around the Imam Ali Mosque and the nearby vast cemetery, while US forces patrolled other parts of the city. Sadr appeared before his supporters wearing bandages late on Friday, apparently confirming reports by aides that he had been wounded in fighting earlier in the day.
US troops and Sadr militia fought sporadically yesterday in Baghdad’s Sadr City slum, a routine occurrence in the 16-month insurgency since last year’s US-led invasion.
US forces said they killed 50 insurgents when warplanes dropped 500-pound bombs on hide-outs in a ground-and-air assault on Samarra. But there was no independent confirmation of the US death toll. After the fighting, the city’s main hospital reported 25 Iraqis dead and 86 wounded, many of them women and children.
At least 43 buildings and homes were destroyed, including a police headquarters and the municipality, police said.
Mosques were heard urging people through loudspeakers to donate blood, and the general hospital said that of the 25 people killed, eight were members of the same family.
In the town of Hilla, 13 Iraqis were killed and 37 wounded in fierce clashes lasting several hours between Shiite militiamen and Polish-backed Iraqi police, the Health Ministry said, but the local police chief put the toll at more than 50 dead.
Twenty Polish soldiers who had been trapped inside a police station there during the Friday night fighting returned to their base yesterday, said a statement from Polish forces.
In Fallujah, eight people were killed and 10 wounded, mostly women and children, after US warplanes struck two homes, hospital sources said. The US military said earlier it struck positions suspected of being used by insurgents after they attacked Marines post on the outskirts of the city.
— Additional input from agencies
