Fighting resumes in Najaf, casting pall over national conference

NAJAF, Iraq – Fighting resumed in earnest Sunday in the holy city of Najaf after peace talks broke down between the Iraqi government and rebel Shiite Muslim militia, provoking an outcry at a national conference.

Mortar and tank blasts, punctuated by machine-gun fire, reverberated across Najaf’s historic heart just a day after the interim government vowed to return to the offensive against the militiamen of radical leader Moqtada Sadr. Smoke rose from the direction of the city’s vast cemetery, north of the mausoleum of Imam Ali, one of Shiite Islam’s holiest shrines, which has been a militia stronghold since a spring uprising against foreign troops.An AFP correspondent saw US tanks parked 200 metres (yards) from the shrine with armed US marines heading towards the Old City.Earlier, the police chief ordered journalists to leave Najaf while militia commanders vowed to resist any new US-led onslaught.”I received orders from the interior minister who demands that all local, Arab and foreign journalists leave the hotel and city within two hours,” General Ghaleb al-Jazairi told reporters at 10:00 am (0600 GMT).More than a week of heavy fighting between Sadr’s Mehdi Army and US-backed Iraqi security forces had calmed Friday to allow for the abortive truce talks.”The Americans took up position in the cemetery and at the entrance to the Old City and they are preparing for a very big attack to kill the residents of Najaf,” charged Sadr spokesman Ali Smeisim.He blamed the talks breakdown on Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, accusing the interim premier of recalling national security advisor Muwafaq al-Rubaie just as he was about to sign a deal.As the fresh clashes began, another Sadr spokesman, Ahmed al-Shaibani, called for new negotiations with Rubaie on the cleric’s demands for a withdrawal of US-led troops from Najaf and a city government headed by the Shiite religious leadership.The renewed violence sparked angry protests at the Baghdad opening of the long-awaited national conference, hailed as Iraq’s first experiment in democracy in decades.After opening speeches by Allawi and UN envoy Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, dozens of delegates leapt out of their seats, shouting: “As long as there are air strikes and shelling, we can’t have a conference.”Yahya Mussawi, from a Shiite faction that worked to defuse Sadr’s spring uprising, jumped on to the stage before he was forced down by chief organiser Fuad Maasum.”It is time that you heard us and we ask that military operations stop in Najaf immediately and dialogue take place,” he shouted, before Maasum announced a 30-minute break in proceedings.Rubaie urged the protestors not to go ahead with a threatened walkout from the conference as they formed a committee to press the government to abandon its renewed offensive.”We ask for the following: a halt to all military operations in Najaf.Second, an end to all armed presence in Najaf, opening the door to dialogue,” said Sheikh Hussein Sadr, a relative of Moqtada, reading out a statement.Members of the group then held a meeting with Allawi.The conference was itself targeted by violence.During the break, mortar bombs exploded in the heavily fortified administrative compound around the venue, shaking the building as organisers screamed at participants to get away from the windows.Two people were killed and 17 wounded when one mortar round struck near Haifa Street, one of the areas included in a daytime curfew imposed for the conference.The US-led coalition meanwhile announced the loss of three soldiers in 24 hours.A US soldier was killed in northern Baghdad while a Dutch soldier and a Ukrainian officer were killed in separate incidents south of the capital.Amid the violence, the government’s sole Christian member — Displacement and Migration Minister Pascale Isho Warda — revealed that 40,000 Christians had left Iraq since a wave of church bombings killed at least 10 people two weeks ago.Nampa-AFPSmoke rose from the direction of the city’s vast cemetery, north of the mausoleum of Imam Ali, one of Shiite Islam’s holiest shrines, which has been a militia stronghold since a spring uprising against foreign troops.An AFP correspondent saw US tanks parked 200 metres (yards) from the shrine with armed US marines heading towards the Old City.Earlier, the police chief ordered journalists to leave Najaf while militia commanders vowed to resist any new US-led onslaught.”I received orders from the interior minister who demands that all local, Arab and foreign journalists leave the hotel and city within two hours,” General Ghaleb al-Jazairi told reporters at 10:00 am (0600 GMT).More than a week of heavy fighting between Sadr’s Mehdi Army and US-backed Iraqi security forces had calmed Friday to allow for the abortive truce talks.”The Americans took up position in the cemetery and at the entrance to the Old City and they are preparing for a very big attack to kill the residents of Najaf,” charged Sadr spokesman Ali Smeisim.He blamed the talks breakdown on Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, accusing the interim premier of recalling national security advisor Muwafaq al-Rubaie just as he was about to sign a deal.As the fresh clashes began, another Sadr spokesman, Ahmed al-Shaibani, called for new negotiations with Rubaie on the cleric’s demands for a withdrawal of US-led troops from Najaf and a city government headed by the Shiite religious leadership.The renewed violence sparked angry protests at the Baghdad opening of the long-awaited national conference, hailed as Iraq’s first experiment in democracy in decades.After opening speeches by Allawi and UN envoy Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, dozens of delegates leapt out of their seats, shouting: “As long as there are air strikes and shelling, we can’t have a conference.”Yahya Mussawi, from a Shiite faction that worked to defuse Sadr’s spring uprising, jumped on to the stage before he was forced down by chief organiser Fuad Maasum.”It is time that you heard us and we ask that military operations stop in Najaf immediately and dialogue take place,” he shouted, before Maasum announced a 30-minute break in proceedings.Rubaie urged the protestors not to go ahead with a threatened walkout from the conference as they formed a committee to press the government to abandon its renewed offensive.”We ask for the following: a halt to all military operations in Najaf.Second, an end to all armed presence in Najaf, opening the door to dialogue,” said Sheikh Hussein Sadr, a relative of Moqtada, reading out a statement.Members of the group then held a meeting with Allawi.The conference was itself targeted by violence.During the break, mortar bombs exploded in the heavily fortified administrative compound around the venue, shaking the building as organisers screamed at participants to get away from the windows.Two people were killed and 17 wounded when one mortar round struck near Haifa Street, one of the areas included in a daytime curfew imposed for the conference.The US-led coalition meanwhile announced the loss of three soldiers in 24 hours.A US soldier was killed in northern Baghdad while a Dutch soldier and a Ukrainian officer were killed in separate incidents south of the capital.Amid the violence, the government’s sole Christian member — Displacement and Migration Minister Pascale Isho Warda — revealed that 40,000 Christians had left Iraq since a wave of church bombings killed at least 10 people two weeks ago.Nampa-AFP