BAGHDAD, 18 August 2004 — Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr yesterday declined to meet with a delegation of Iraq’s tribal and religious leaders who went to Najaf to persuade him to end his rebellion and join mainstream politics.

A Sadr aide told reporters the cleric refused to meet the team from Baghdad “because of continued aggression by the Americans.”

The delegation of eight had flown into Najaf from Baghdad on US Black Hawk helicopters. Braving US bombardment and militia sniper fire, the group drove to the office of Sadr inside Imam Ali Mosque. There they waited for three hours before being told Sadr could not meet them.

While waiting for an audience at the mosque compound, delegation head Hussein Sadr, a distant relative of the cleric. said: “This is not a negotiation. This is a friendly mission to convey the message of the National Conference. We want to change the Mehdi Army into a political organization and to evacuate the shrine of Ali with the promise not to legally pursue those taking shelter there. This is what the government and all Iraqis want.”

Sadr aides said they welcomed the mission, but not the peace proposal.

“The demands of the (National Conference) committee are impossible. The shrine compound must be in the hands of the religious authorities. They are asking us to leave Najaf while we are the sons of Najaf,” said Sadr aide, Ali Sumeisim.

The delegation went to Najaf even though Sadr’s Mehdi Army and US forces fought running battles throughout the day. At least one US warplane dropped bombs near the city’s sprawling cemetery and US troops entered the flash-point Old City neighborhood, where the Mehdi Army is based. The clashes killed three people and wound 15 others, all of them civilians, according to rescue worker Sadiq Al-Shaibany.

Two of the civilians were killed when gunfire hit the office of the Badr Brigades, the militant wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite political group which is not involved in the fighting, according to Ridha Taqi, a SCIRI official.

In Baghdad, the three-day National Conference, which was called to elect a 100-member national council, was extended by a day, the conference’s organizer said. Conference chair Fuad Masoum gave no reason for the extension, but talks at the landmark meeting have centered on ending the fighting in Najaf.

A mortar round hit a busy street several kilometers from the conference venue, killing seven people and injuring 47 others. The blast on Al-Rasheed Street set one building on fire and damaged seven cars, said Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman, of the Interior Ministry.

The mortar did not appear to be aimed at the conference but rather was a routine attack.

In the Baghdad suburb of Sadr City, a US soldier was killed and several others were wounded in clashes with Shiite militiamen. The US military said three armored vehicles were disabled by the insurgents.

A Jordanian car dealer who was kidnapped eight days ago was rescued on Monday night by Iraqi police outside Karbala.

— Additional input from agencies