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Clashes Near Holy Iraq City [Kufa], Rebel Cleric Defiant
Yahoo News Page ^ | 16 April 2004 | By Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

Posted on 04/16/2004 6:47:41 AM PDT by BlackVeil

KUFA, Iraq (Reuters) - Blasts shook Iraq's holy Shi'ite town of Kufa on Friday after militiamen loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said they ambushed a convoy of vehicles from an American force that is building up nearby.

"I saw at least two Humvees on fire and we also attacked armored personnel carriers," said one fighter in the town adjacent to Najaf, home to the holiest Shi'ite shrines and where Sadr has been hiding from U.S. forces ordered to kill or capture him.

"We attacked them again, but then they started mortaring our position so we had to retreat," said the man, clad in the black uniform of Sadr's Mehdi Army militia, as columns of smoke rose above the town and militiamen tried to evacuate at least two wounded colleagues across a bridge.

Defiant at Friday prayers in Kufa, Sadr said he would not disband his militia under any circumstances "because I did not create it on my own but with the cooperation of the Iraqi people."

Hospital sources said at least five people were killed and 20 wounded, most of them seriously, in the fighting.

There was no immediate comment from U.S. forces which have reinforced Spanish and Polish soldiers in the area around Najaf, prepared to root out Sadr and his militia, which took control of the city center earlier this month, if peace talks fail.

Sadr's militia launched an uprising against occupying troops this month and has fought skirmishes in several cities.

U.S. troops also fought Sunni insurgents in Falluja overnight and a hospital official in the city west of Baghdad said 15 people were killed and 20 wounded, just hours after America's top general said truce talks could not go on for ever and more military action might be necessary.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers said Iraq's U.S. governor Paul Bremer was using "multiple channels" in talks to pacify Falluja and avoid fighting in Najaf.

Polish officers commanding international troops in the Najaf region were unhappy at the prospect of an assault on the holy city by 2,500 U.S. troops poised outside, Polish media said.

Sadr said earlier Iraqis would hit back with unimaginable "force and severity" if U.S. forces carried out their threat to kill or capture him.

"Their threats to kill or detain me are a result of their weakness and collapse in the face of what has happened, and is happening, in Iraq," he told Lebanon's as-Safir newspaper.

FALLUJA FIGHTING

Lebanon's top Shi'ite cleric said Washington would fan fury across the Muslim world if it invaded Najaf or attacked Sadr.

"All of this will set the ground burning beneath their feet, not just in Iraq, but in the whole of the Islamic world," Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah said in his Friday sermon.

American warplanes attacked targets in Falluja and a U.S. armored vehicle was destroyed, witnesses said.

U.S. Marines launched their assault on the city west of Baghdad on April 5 after the killing and mutilation of four U.S. private security guards there the previous week. Doctors say more than 600 Iraqis have died in fighting in Falluja since.

A week ago, the U.S. military said it had suspended offensive operations in Falluja but would hit back if attacked. Talks to stabilize a shaky truce have led to relative calm interspersed with intense bouts of fighting and air strikes.

In the holy city of Kerbala, where Sadr's followers are in control, three Iraqi policeman were killed in clashes with Shi'ite militiamen on Friday, witnesses said.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said ahead of talks with President Bush that they shared the goal of creating a stable, democratic and self-ruled Iraq, but refused to discuss whether they differed on how to achieve this.

"How we get there is the obviously the difficult issue, particularly with security at the moment. But our determination to get there remains undimmed," Blair said after meeting U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in New York.

HOSTAGES

Three freed Japanese hostages flew from Iraq to Dubai on Friday, but two Japanese remained missing, along with other foreigners seized in this month's spate of kidnappings.

A Danish businessman in Iraq to set up a sewerage business has joined the hostage list. Danish Broadcasting News said the man, in his 30s, was taken during a highway robbery, probably late on Tuesday, in Taji, north of Baghdad.

Kidnappers demanding an end to the siege of Falluja and the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq have seized more than 40 foreigners, although many have been released.

Italy has vowed to keep its troops in Iraq despite the videotaped execution of one of four Italian hostages held there.

But at Baghdad airport, 117 people from former Soviet countries, mainly Russia and Ukraine, arrived in convoys to board a plane sent from Russia to evacuate them. They included one man brought by ambulance, who said he had been shot in the leg earlier this week while swimming in a river outside Baghdad.

It was the second day of an evacuation organized after the kidnap and release of eight Russians and Ukrainians this week.

April has been Iraq's bloodiest month since Saddam Hussein was ousted a year ago. The U.S. military has lost at least 92 troops in combat since March 31 -- more than the total killed in the three-week war that toppled Saddam.

The U.S.-led administration is due to hand power to an as yet undefined interim Iraqi government on June 30 and U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has been in Iraq to consult on the transition.

Brahimi, due in New York soon to report back, said this week he was confident a caretaker government could be formed next month, but stressed that security must improve before planned elections could be held in January.

(Additional reporting by Michael Georgy, Will Dunham and Chris Helgren in Baghdad and Charles Aldinger in Washington)


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: alsadr; fadlallah; fallujah; hezballah; hezbollah; hizbollah; iraq; jihad; kerbala; kufa; najaf; religionofpeace; religionofpieces; southwestasia
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1 posted on 04/16/2004 6:47:42 AM PDT by BlackVeil
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To: BlackVeil
"All of this will set the ground burning beneath their feet, not just in Iraq, but in the whole of the Islamic world," Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah said in his Friday sermon.

And how would that would be different?

2 posted on 04/16/2004 6:52:55 AM PDT by Uncle Miltie (Leave Pat Leave!)
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To: BlackVeil
Blah Blah Blah.

Look folks, we've had fewer than 1,000 dead in the two-plus years since 9/11. That is a great improvement in the casualty rate compared to the 3,000 who died that day.

So buck up. Fighting this war is less costly than not fighting it. If we had rolled over and played dead like the Islamofascists want us to, there would have been even more dead.

Appeasement never works. There are actual risks and costs of the current strategy. But they are demonstrably less than doing nothing and risking another 9/11.
3 posted on 04/16/2004 6:56:25 AM PDT by Uncle Miltie (Leave Pat Leave!)
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To: BlackVeil
"Defiant at Friday prayers in Kufa, Sadr said he would not disband his militia under any circumstances "because I did not create it on my own but with the cooperation of the Iraqi people."

Maybe he's gone off the deep end.

4 posted on 04/16/2004 6:56:29 AM PDT by nuconvert ("America will never be intimidated by thugs and assassins." ( President Bush 3-20-04))
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To: BlackVeil
Do not vote for a liberal/socialist government that will turn your military into scraps of meat and a health care where you need to wait 7 hours in the emergency room to see a doctor. I LOVE America, I whish I were American....

http://www.flipflopper.com/
5 posted on 04/16/2004 6:57:22 AM PDT by forYourChildrenVote4Bush (No time for wobbly knees.)
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To: Brad Cloven
I am sick and tired of hearing about "holy city of najaf", "holy city of mecca", "holy city of fill in the blank", what makes the city "holy?" Every freaking city you have can't be "holy". How about some freaking quotes around it? Any crappy desert city of islamofacists can't be holy, maybe a big pile of crap, but it ain't holy.

/rant
6 posted on 04/16/2004 6:58:54 AM PDT by RolandBurnam
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To: RolandBurnam
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,320,000 for iraq holy city

Googled

7 posted on 04/16/2004 7:07:46 AM PDT by Flyer ( http://talesfromtherail.com/ . . . .The disaster in Houston known as MetroRail)
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To: BlackVeil
An update KUFA, Iraq, April 16 (Reuters) - At least five people were killed and 20 injured in clashes between a Shi'ite militia and U.S. forces near the Iraqi town of Kufa on Friday, a hospital doctor said.

"Most of the injured are seriously wounded," Seif al-Din Youssef, a doctor at the Central Euphrates hospital, added.

"They have bullet wounds to the chest and limbs, or injuries caused by mortar blasts. We have civilians among the casualties."

8 posted on 04/16/2004 7:10:28 AM PDT by BlackVeil
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To: Aaron0617
An update KUFA, Iraq, April 16 (Reuters) - At least five people were killed and 20 injured in clashes between a Shi'ite militia and U.S. forces near the Iraqi town of Kufa on Friday, a hospital doctor said.

Never mind that..what about U.S. casualties? This article said something about humvees on fire. Is everyone from our side okay??

What is the latest?

9 posted on 04/16/2004 7:14:07 AM PDT by Aaron0617
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To: BlackVeil
Blasts shook Iraq's holy Shi'ite town of Kufa

Another holy town?

10 posted on 04/16/2004 7:21:22 AM PDT by CaptRon (Pedecaris alive or Raisuli dead)
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To: BlackVeil
How many HOLY cities in the Moslem World? They still want to share the only holy city the christians and Jews have - Jerusalem!
11 posted on 04/16/2004 7:24:15 AM PDT by philosofy123
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To: philosofy123
How many HOLY cities in the Moslem World?

How many places are there where some Imam takes a dump?
12 posted on 04/16/2004 7:59:19 AM PDT by pt17
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To: RolandBurnam
Possibly "holy" city derived from term for out-houses...as in "one-holer", "two-holer", etc..
13 posted on 04/16/2004 8:01:24 AM PDT by ken5050 (Ann Coulter needs to have children ASAP to propagate her genes.....any volunteers?)
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To: pt17
I love it! LOL!
14 posted on 04/16/2004 8:03:43 AM PDT by philosofy123
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To: RolandBurnam
Wrong. I hail from the Holy City of Denver. I have, in the past, lived in the Holy cities of Buffalo and Chicago.
15 posted on 04/16/2004 8:09:28 AM PDT by Peter J. Huss
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To: philosofy123
The media should really stop using that term. It depends on which sect you belong.......
16 posted on 04/16/2004 9:56:41 AM PDT by nuconvert ("America will never be intimidated by thugs and assassins." ( President Bush 3-20-04))
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To: RolandBurnam
You've never heard of 'holy hell'?
17 posted on 04/16/2004 10:06:52 AM PDT by monkeywrench
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To: BlackVeil

Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr leads prayers in the town of Kufa, some 160 km south from capital Baghdad on April 16, 2004. Sadr warned the United States that Iraqis would hit back with unimaginable ferocity if U.S. forces carried out a threat to kill or capture him. 'If I am killed or detained the Iraqi public will know how to respond with a force and severity whose extent no one will have imagined,' Sadr told Lebanon's as-Safir newspaper. Photo by Ceerwan Aziz/Reuters

18 posted on 04/16/2004 2:38:40 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe ("As government expands, liberty contracts.")
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To: philosofy123
They still want to share the only holy city the christians and Jews have - Jerusalem!

Actually, Hebron, Tibererias and Safad, in the Holy Land, are sacred to Jews along with Jerusalem. Also, European sites associated with the Holocaust are so emotive to the Jewish community that they deny the right of other religions to be represented there (eg the outrage over the Carmelite convent at Autzwitz), or wish them to remain forever as memorials.

Christians have plenty of holy cities! Come on people - in Europe and the old world, that has always been the case. Rome, Loretto, Canterbury, Lourdes, Fatima, Paray le Monial, Avila, Chartres ... that is just the beginning of a list of hundreds of cities which have the character of shrines and pilgrimage sites.

I agree with nuconvert's point that the media should stop using the term, as most of these places in Iraq are only of significance to Shias (just as most of the European sites above are holy only to Catholics.) Southern Iraq is where the founding events of their particular sect took place, and most of the holy places are where their tombs are.

It is easy enough to make the distinction - Basra, Nasiriyeh, etc are not holy cities, whereas Karbela, Najaf, Samarra, etc are.

There are no holy cities in the USA, which is probably why Americans find the whole concept so irritating.

19 posted on 04/16/2004 2:39:06 PM PDT by BlackVeil
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To: Tailgunner Joe
Many thanks for the pic!
20 posted on 04/16/2004 2:39:49 PM PDT by BlackVeil
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