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Iraqi cleric vows death or victory in holy city
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-08-14 11:34

Radical Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr vowed to stay in his Najaf stronghold until victory or death on Friday, shattering hopes of a compromise with U.S. forces encircling the city's holiest shrines.

Buoyed by mass demonstrations condemning a U.S. offensive aimed at crushing his nine-day old uprising, Sadr was defiant toward what he called the "dictatorial" interim government trying to negotiate an end to the standoff.

A video grab shows radical Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr speaking from the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf, August 13, 2004. Al-Sadr vowed to stay in his Najaf stronghold until victory or death , shattering hopes of a compromise with U.S. forces encircling the city's holiest shrines. [Reuters]

"I advise the dictatorial, agent government to resign... the whole Iraqi people demands the resignation of the government," he told fighters holed up in the city's sacred Imam Ali shrine, according to a Sadr spokesman.

"I will not leave this holy city," he told his fighters, who chanted "no, no to America" in response. "We will remain here defending the holy shrines till victory or martyrdom."

A Sadr spokesman had earlier said the cleric would pull his forces out of Najaf if U.S. forces also withdrew and religious authorities agreed to administer the city's sacred sites, the holiest for Iraq's majority Shi'ite Muslims.

But the fiery speech, designed to rally militia fighters who have suffered heavy losses against U.S. warplanes and tanks, appeared to reject earlier government overtures for a deal to end the confrontation.

Just in case anti-Bush documentary 'Fahrenheit 9/11' needed any more controversy to fuel its hot box office, a new war of words broke out on August 13, 2004 over whether the U.S. Army is stonewalling efforts to book the film at military bases. But the organization that orders films for the 160 base theaters countered that it was the distributors that had the problem and noted they plan to stock base stores with the film's DVDs when they are released. Michael Moore (R) and Sgt. Abdul Henderson are shown in a scene from the film on Capitol Hill attempting to convince congressmen to send their sons to Iraq.  [Reuters]

Sadr's hand and arm were bandaged, apparently confirming a report by his spokesman that he had been wounded in the chest, arm and leg at 4:30 a.m. (0030 GMT) by fighting around Najaf's cemetery on Friday. He appeared otherwise fit.

Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib of Iraq's interim government earlier denied Sadr had been wounded and said a truce had been in force since Thursday night.

"Sayyed Moqtada will not be touched if he leaves the shrine peacefully," Naqib said.

The uprising in Najaf has killed hundreds and threatened to undermine the rule of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who is walking a tightrope trying to crush the radical Shi'ite rebellion across southern Iraq that has hit oil exports.

By evening, witnesses said U.S. soldiers had withdrawn from positions near Sadr's house in Najaf, which they raided on Thursday during their offensive on fighters around the Imam Ali mosque and the city's cemetery, strongholds for Sadr's men.

The Najaf assault helped to drive world oil prices to new highs. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, September crude oil rose by $1.08 to $46.58 a barrel, the highest close in the 21-year history of the exchange.

Gunmen kidnapped a British journalist in the southern city of Basra, threatening to execute him within 24 hours if U.S. forces did not pull out of Najaf, but Sunday Telegraph reporter James Brandon was later released after Sadr intervened.

FALLUJA AIR STRIKES

U.S. planes bombed targets in the city of Falluja for the second day, killing six Iraqis including two children, hospital officials said. The U.S. military said it had no comment.

Residents said Najaf was quieter than on Thursday.

"We have ceased offensive military operations at this time," a U.S. military spokesman said.

In the southern town of Kufa, 10 km (6 miles) from the city, Iraqi security forces killed several people in a raid on a Sadr stronghold, U.S. Marine Captain Carrie Batson told CNN.

Several hundred Sadr loyalists surrounded 20 Polish soldiers at a police station in the town of Hilla, where they had been supporting Iraqi officers, Polish officers said, warning that they may have to use force to end the siege.

The officers said the soldiers would stay the night at the police station. "We don't want to endanger our soldiers by moving them out during the night," Lieutenant Colonel Artur Domanski, spokesman for the Polish-led multinational division, said in a live interview on television station TVN 24.

"The building is specially fortified and the soldiers are well equipped, so I can be certain that they will last till morning," he said, adding that a reaction force was standing by at a nearby base if the situation worsened.

Poland commands a multinational force of 8,000 troops in south-central Iraq, including 2,500 Poles.

Thousands of Sadr supporters protested in front of the Green Zone compound housing the Iraqi government and the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Several Iraqi police took part. Protests also took place in the cities of Diwaniya, Kufa, Samawa, Kirkuk, Kerbala and Falluja.

Thousands of Shi'ites also demonstrated in Iran, which has called for U.S. troops to leave Iraq, and U.S. Gulf Arab ally Bahrain. Smaller protests took place in Lebanon.

The protests in Iraq showed the depth of divisions ahead of the planned start of a national conference on Sunday to choose a 100-member assembly to oversee the interim government.

U.N. Iraq envoy Ashraf Qazi, due to attend the conference, arrived in Baghdad and met Allawi and President Ghazi al-Yawar.

The Security Council voted on Thursday to extend a U.N. mission in Iraq, 12 months after a bomb attack killed Qazi's predecessor, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and 21 others.

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