swift action by our hand-picked iraqi council averts imminent threat of avoiding muslim holy war

[sisyphusshrugged]

Well, it looked as if we were going to get out of Najaf without creating volunteer martyrs and destroying a muslim holy place (giving generations of extremists one more excuse for terror attacks) but at the eleventh hour, after al-Sadr had agreed to lay down arms, the council cleverly delivered a very public ultimatim.

Among its conditions: that he lay down arms before we stop shooting at him.

An Iraqi Cabinet minister said Thursday that Iraqi forces could begin an offensive against Muqtada al-Sadr within hours, even after the firebrand cleric holed up in Najaf accepted a cease-fire proposal aimed at ending nearly two weeks of fighting in the holy city.

Minister of State Qassim Dawoud issued a series of demands al-Sadr must meet to prevent an imminent attack on his forces, who are inside the revered Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf.

Al-Sadr must immediately disarm his Mahdi Army militia and hand over its weapons to the authorities, he said. The cleric must also give the government a signed statement that he will not practice acts of violence in the future and will release all civilians and Iraqi security forces that his militants have kidnapped.

In addition, al-Sadr must hold a news conference to announce that he is disbanding the Mahdi Army.

"The military action has become imminent," Dawoud told a news conference. "If these conditions are not met, then the military solution will prevail."

Meanwhile, explosions and gunfire could be heard Thursday in the streets of Najaf, where al-Sadr's militants have been fighting a combined U.S.-Iraqi force for two weeks. Three U.S. tanks and two Humvees were parked about 400 yards from the shrine, about as close as U.S. forces have come to the holy site during the fighting.

Fighters from the Mahdi Army militia could be seen manning positions in narrow alleys of the Old City and outside the shrine compound. A clock on the compound's outer wall, reportedly hit by shrapnel, was smoldering.

Fearful of the violence, few civilians ventured out and most stores, some damaged during the fighting, were closed.

Speaking earlier Thursday, al-Sadr spokesman Qais al-Khazali, blamed the violence on U.S. forces.

"Still they are continuing to shell the city," al-Khazali said. "We will continue to fight if the issue isn't resolved peacefully."

Late Wednesday al-Sadr sent a letter to Iraq's national conference gathering saying he would accept its peace plan to put down his arms, withdraw from the shrine and turn to politics in exchange for amnesty for his fighters. However, he wanted an end to the fighting before he complied and he wanted to negotiate how the plan would be implemented, his aides said.

The government on Thursday demanded he comply without any conditions.

Yeah, that'll work.

Fierce fighting was reported around Najaf’s holy shrine today after a rebel cleric’s aide rejected a government ultimatum for Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia to disarm or risk a massive offensive.

Sheik Aws al-Khafaji, the head of al-Sadr’s office in the southern city of Nasiriyah, said the ultimatum proved the government “wants only war.”

Al-Khafaji appeared to be speaking on his own behalf and not in al-Sadr’s name. Other aides holed up with the cleric in the holy city of Najaf appealed to the government to negotiate and end to the violence there.

Al-Khafaji also said that al-Sadr did not have the authority to disband his Mahdi Army militia or to force his followers to give up their arms.

He called on the government to force all other factions in the country to disarm.

Earlier, a series of mortar rounds hit the police headquarters in Najaf. Hospital officials said policemen were killed.

I think all of us who went to bed terrified that we were going to awake to the cessation of hostilities in one of the worst PR debacles of the war are grateful to Qassim Dawoud for finding a way to prolong the conflict indefinitely while accomplishing what appears to be a goal of his own.

"We don’t have any intention to capture or arrest Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr," said Iraqi Minister of State Qassim Dawoud, using the honorific form of "mister" for al-Sadr.

and yes, al-Sadr says he's working for us

Minister of State Kassem Daoud had nothing to do with a peace mission from Iraq's key national conference, which Sadr had accepted, Ali Smeisim told a news conference in the holy city of Najaf on Thursday afternoon.

"He is not part of the negotiations. If there is a US conspiracy orchestrated by US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld and US agents respond to it, then we'll be happy to be martyrs of this nation," he said.

which may or may not be true, but if it is, I vote we give him a few days off.

Comments

[cdodgson.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... according to Juan Cole, here, the agreed truce fit a pattern which is starting to get a little familiar: "Let's all disarm -- you first". In particular, he cites al-Jazeera reports that Muqtada had agreed to disarm his militia (whatever that means, for such an irregular force) if the American military withdrew first -- a little detail that the Western media may have missed.

Reports of good news from Iraq have been unreliable -- but then again, reports of bad news from Iraq have also been unreliable, at least in detail. (Hmmm... there may be a more general principle at work here). It may be best not to believe much of anything unless it's stood without contradiction for 24 hours...

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

I'm nothing like a fan of al-Sadr, but it doesn't seem to me to be all that much of a stretch for everyone to stop shooting at once.

I can't imagine a hostage negotiator (and let's face it, the shrine is a hostage here) telling the kidnappers that they have to hand over all their weapons under fire or no deal.

In any case, they'd agreed to a cease-fire and now we've made it look as if it wasn't negotiated in good faith. Since we were dumb enough not to lock down the shrine after they pulled this hiding in a holy place city the first time, I don't think we can afford to look as if we're not negotiating in good faith.

And, you know, since when does someone not involved in negotiations sanctioned by the head of state hold a press conference to announce that an agreement is abrogated? This sounds an awful lot like out-of-control factionalism to me.

It also sounds not a little like a dicksize war.

Mostly agreed...

[cdodgson.livejournal.com]

... and the ham-handedness of these negotiations has clearly done "our side" no good. But it's not clear, to me at least, that the negotiators were really authorized to agree to a deal that had the U.S. leaving first -- Muqtada's condition -- if in fact they did.

Part of what's going on here is definitely power struggles within the "independent" Iraqi government, such as it is. It's awfully hard to judge what's going on if your only source is Western news reports, but they made it sound as if the mediation effort was begun by delegates to the Iraqi National Conference (or whatever its official name) mostly on their own initiative. It wasn't really clear to me whether Allawi and his minions really did support it, or whether they were allowing it to proceed because they can't afford (yet?) to be seen to squash that sort of thing. The ongoing threats and ultimatums from Allawi's minions don't sound as if they really had their hearts in the negotiation... but there may be something else going on here that just doesn't show up in the press.

Sigh...