BAGHDAD, 25 August 2004 — Iraqi forces yesterday threatened to storm the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf while representatives of Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr appealed for talks. US and Iraqi forces battled Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia and Iraqi National Guardsmen advanced to within 200 meters of the mosque compound.
Addressing Iraqi National Guard troops in Najaf, Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan said Iraqi troops would head toward the shrine to await the signal for a raid or the capitulation of the militants. “When your brothers approach the holy shrine compound, they will direct calls of mercy to those (militants) to surrender,” Shaalan said. “They have hours to surrender.”
“If Moqtada Sadr surrenders, he will be safe and sound. If he resists, the only thing for him is death or prison,” Shaalan told reporters at a US base outside Najaf.
Dozens of national guardsmen joined US troops around the mosque for the first time. Heavy machine-gun and tank fire pummeled the neighborhood in clashes with Sadr’s Mehdi Army. US tanks and armored cars crawled through the bombed-out streets.
Sadr aides appealed for talks, which the government has repeatedly rejected. “We are ready to negotiate to end this crisis and the suffering of our persecuted people... but this government doesn’t want negotiations,” said Ali Sumeisim, a senior Sadr aide.
Speaking to reporters inside the mosque compound, Sadr’s spokesman Ahmed Al-Shaibany said government threats would only exacerbate the crisis. “We will not accept any solution that is humiliating for us. We are opening the door to a peaceful solution and we hope this will stop the fighting,” he said, reiterating a readiness to hand over the mosque to the Shiite religious leadership.
“They must stop threatening us, because these threats will lead to more destruction and chaos,” he said, adding that the solution was for foreign troops to pull out of Iraqi towns and villages.
“The Mehdi Army was formed only because of the occupiers. If they return to their bases and leave the villages, then the Mehdi Army will drop its weapons and go back to civilian life,” he said.
In Baghdad, assailants bombed the convoys of two government ministers in separate attacks that killed five people and a suicide bomber but left the ministers unharmed, officials said.
In the southern town of Ammara, at least 12 Iraqis were killed, including three children, and 54 wounded in clashes between Shiite militiamen and British troops. Twelve dead were brought to the Al-Ammara Hospital and 54 patients admitted with injuries, said the center’s director.
Sadr’s fighters clashed with British troops for about two hours after they opened fire on a British base at around 4 p.m. Dr. Mustafa Ali said three mortar rounds landed on the Al-Jadida residential district. It was not immediately clear which side fired the deadly rounds.
The military said British bases in Ammara had come under sporadic small-arms and mortar attacks, but had no information about any “sustained activity”.
A spokesman said there had only been “low-level interference for roughly the last 24 hours. There’s been no large incident that we are aware of.”
An Islamist group said it abducted an Italian journalist and gave Rome 48 hours to announce it was pulling out its troops from the country or risk the life of the hostage. The Italian appeared alone on a videotape aired by Al-Jazeera television and identified himself as Enzo Baldoni, a freelance writer who disappeared in Iraq in recent days. The tape also showed the man’s passport.
Al-Jazeera said it received the video from the group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq.
Within hours, the Italian government rejected the abductors’ demand.
— Additional input from agencies
