Posted on 08/13/2004 3:49:58 AM PDT by Barney Gumble
NAJAF, Iraq - Iraqi officials and aides to a radical Shiite cleric were trying to negotiate an end to nine days of fighting in the holy city of Najaf on Friday, after U.S. forces suspended an offensive against Muqtada al-Sadr's militia, officials said. Aides said al-Sadr had been wounded by shrapnel.
In the southern city of Basra, gunmen seized a British journalist, identified as James Brandon, from a hotel where he was staying late Thursday night, police said Friday. The kidnappers threatened to kill him in 24 hours unless coalition forces withdraw from Najaf, though it wasn't clear when that deadline would expire.
Also Friday,
With the talks ongoing, the U.S. military said Friday that it had suspended offensive operations against al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, who are holed up the city's vast cemetery and the Imam Ali shrine, one of the holiest sites to Shiite Muslims.
"We are allowed to engage the enemy only in self defense and long enough to break contact," said Maj. Bob Pizzateli, executive officer for the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division. "That was a blanket order for everybody."
He said the militia appeared to have stopped most attacks as well, and the city appeared quieter Friday, a day after the U.S. military announced it had begun a major offensive to rout the militants.
"Hopefully the talks will go well and everything will be resolved peacefully," Pizzateli said.
Najaf Gov. Adnan al-Zurufi said the talks were between Iraqi government officials and al-Sadr's representatives. National Security Adviser Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie traveled to Najaf on Thursday. U.S. officials were not involved in the talks, al-Zurufi said.
Despite the talks, the U.S. military said it was still maintaining a cordon around the shrine, the cemetery and Najaf's old city, where the militants had taken refuge, Pizzateli said.
Al-Sadr, who has led an uprising against coalition troops for more than a week in the holy city, was hit by shrapnel in the chest and twice in a leg as he met with members of his Mahdi Army militia near the Imam Ali shrine early Friday, said aide Haider al-Tousi.
Another of al-Sadr's spokesmen said the cleric's condition was stable. He may be holed up in the compound housing the revered shrine, along with his loyalists, while one aide, Haider al-Tousi, said he was moved to an unknown destination.
Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, deputy director for operations for the coalition forces, said he could not confirm reports that al-Sadr was wounded.
"Multinational forces are operating under firm instructions not to pursue Muqtada and not to conduct operations within the exclusion zone surrounding the Imam Ali and Kufa Mosques," he said in a statement.
Al-Sadr urged his followers to remain calm.
"We got a letter from him saying 'Be steadfast and behave rationally, don't surrender to your emotions,'" Aws al-Khafaji, from al-Sadr's office in the southern town of Nasiriyah, told the Al-Jazeera Arab television.
In Basra, gunmen abducted the British journalist from the Diafa Hotel Thursday night, police Capt. Hashem Abdullah said Friday.
Hotel staff showed a check-in form purportedly filled out by the man. On the form, he identified himself as James Andrew Brandon, 23, working for the Sunday Telegraph. It said he checked in on Wednesday.
A video released Friday showed a man who identified himself as Brandon. He stood bare-chested with a bandage on his head.
The "Telegraph, that's my paper," he said, turning to a masked captor.
"I'm a journalist. I just write about what's happening in Iraq (news - web sites)," he said.
The militants, almost certainly Shiite, said they had taken Brandon hostage in protest of the U.S. military presence in Najaf.
"We are the sons of the Iraqi people," said one captor, wearing a black mask. "We demand the withdrawal of the occupation forces from the holy city of Najaf in 24 hours, otherwise we will kill this British hostage," he said, putting a hand on Brandon's shoulder.
The video was given to Associated Press Television News after a freelance cameraman was taken to the location where he's believed to be held.
Kidnappers in Iraq have seized scores of hostages in recent months, threatening to kill them in an effort to drive out coalition forces and companies that support them. Most of those kidnappers have been Sunni insurgents, and Shiites using the tactic would be a new development.
Brandon was the third journalist kidnapped in Iraq in recent months. In April, two Japanese journalists were among a group of Japanese abducted near the city of Fallujah and released unharmed.
Hotel owner Mohammed Uglah said gunmen found Brandon and shot at him after he tried to escape, hitting him across the head before taking him away. Video footage showed a trail of blood leading down a set of stairs in the hotel, but Brandon did not appear seriously hurt in the tape.
Britain's Foreign Office confirmed that a British national had been abducted in Basra but said it couldn't confirm the person's identity because it was still trying to contact next of kin. A Sunday Telegraph editor confirmed Brandon wrote stories for the paper.
"James Brandon was in Basra filing material for this Sunday's newspaper amongst other projects," Sunday Telegraph Deputy Editor Matthew d'Ancona said. "We are pursuing his situation with the greatest concern."
The Najaf offensive threatened to enrage Iraq's Shiite majority — especially if the fighting damages the shrine — and presented the biggest test yet for interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite who is trying to crush the violence plaguing the country while working to persuade Iraqis of the legitimacy of his unelected government.
Nearly 5,000 al-Sadr sympathizers had taken to the streets in Basra on Thursday, demanding U.S. troops withdraw from Najaf and condemning Allawi for working with the Americans. Several hundred Iraqis also protested in Baghdad.
Iraq's top Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who left Najaf for London to undergo medical treatment before fighting broke out, expressed "deep sorrow and great worry" about the violence and called on all sides to end the crisis quickly. His office was working to mediate an end to the fighting, he said.
Violence across the country, much of it involving al-Sadr's fighters, has killed at least 172 Iraqis and injured 643 since Wednesday morning, the Health Ministry said.
The casualty toll from Thursday's fighting in the holy city was unclear. At least five Iraqi civilians were killed by the afternoon, said Nabil Mohammed, a health worker in the city. Two American soldiers were wounded by a mortar shell while standing in an intersection on the cemetery's edge, the military said.
The U.S. Defense Department said that about 2,200 Marines, along with 500 to 1,000 soldiers and an undisclosed number of U.S.-trained Iraqi troops, were involved in the offensive Thursday.
Uh, o.k.
We have American troops in Iraq because they had a nutjob dictator who was plotting to kill us, we beat their butts, and now our military takes orders from them.
Now I get it.
Thanks for explaining that to me. Sometimes I get confused.
As many as the hairs in their unwashed beards.
Look, you don't have to be an "armchair general" to see the folly in refraining from CRUSHING this Arafat play-alike and all his koolaid-quaffers.
They must be RUTHLESSLY crushed and exterminated.
That is the ONLY THING the "Arab Street" will respect.
Maybe, maybe not. On Hammorai's Iraqi blog there are suggestions that the ING has been deserting to Sadr in droves. I don't know if that's true or not, but if it is, then the suspension, along with the negotiations, has very different, and very very serious negative implications for our side, and for the whole Iraqi enterprise.
Thanks and of course you are correct.
There are some hypersensitive souls here who think ANY criticism of Bush or the war means you support Kerry. That's hardly the case. I hope and pray Bush gets elected, dumps Rove, Powell and Mineta and saves America from the Muslims, illegla invaders and wacko leftists.
Uh yes I do.
There are expanding little Mexicos and little Honduras all over the place and Americans are getting sick and tired of it
Well ge you lost the Najf arguement, now go into illeagal immigration.
BTW, basically all the homegrown terrorists don't have hispanic surmnames. You know names like Walker-Lindh and the college kid from Washington state, Ryan.
The one who has a hisapnic surname, Padilla, is Puerto Rican, and is an American citizen by birth.
But you can keep on, IMO, ranting, that's your right as an American.
Want proof?
========= Israel: Joseph's Tomb =========
Joseph's Tomb, after the Arab terrorists (financed by the EU and UN) first destroyed it,
then after the Israelis restored it, and then again after the Arab and Palestinian terrorists struck again.
Early destruction of Joseph's Tomb by Arab terorists.
Then Joseph's Tomb, rerestored by Israel, tolerant of all religions,
Joseph's Tomb, after the Arab and Palestinian terrorists
(financed by the EU and UN) resavaged the site, in their typical "pieceful" way.
Two words: Tora-Bora and Falujah.
If the government of Iraq does not have the political will to eliminate Al Sader, but instead once again allows him and his band of merry men to escape, retreat, receive immunity, or in anyway get away because President Bush wants to fight a P.C. engagement and will not allow the Marines to do what needs to be done in order to deal with this petty thug once and for all (i.e. KILL HIM and his army) then we have lost, this war is over and the troops should come home. We should not be fighting for a people unwilling to fight for themselves, or do what is necessary in order to protect their very existence.
If the Iraqis’ do not possess the political will to crush this threat to their very survival as a nation, then what is happening in Najaf will be repeated over and over again until the Islamic fascists take down the government and replace it with an Islamic fascist state.
This is a watershed event, it is make or break time for President Bush and Iraq!
If he fails to deal with this now, then in all likely hood President Bush is going to lose the election because we cannot win IF we are forced to fight a P.C. war. It is impossible because history has consistently shown that people and nations that fight “sensitive” P.C. wars ALWAYS lose them.
This mosque is not a “holy place” it is a fortress, stocked with weapons and filled with thugs and killers who are bent on killing Americans and destroying the Iraqi government and enslaving the people under Islamic masters and Islamic law. The only way to deal with the situation is to go in and kill or capture them all, not negotiate! The bad guys have us over a P.C. barrel, they KNOW that we are not willing to go in and get them so they have a safe haven and sanctuary and unless we have some way of killing them without touching their “sacred” “holy place” (sarcasm off) then they wait us out, restock, re-supply their “holy place” of death and fight on until they win.
The more time that goes buy in this stalemate the stronger they become because of outside pressure from our supposed “allies” = “Don’t hurt those poor mean-nasty Islamic terrorists, it is against “international law” and the so-called “Arab street,” you know, those “wonderful” Islamic multitudes who want to destroy our civilization, convert us to Islam, enslave us or saw off our heads. Flaujah is the ultimate example; if we let them off the hook, they will only become stronger and stronger until they win.
I believe with all my heart that what is happening right now in Iraq is a watershed, make or break event and what President Bush does there will determine the outcome of the election. If he does not act, decisively, no matter what the polls, our so-called “allies” and political pundents say, then the masses will fall under the sway of Kerrys’ more sensitive, “get us out of Iraq now” policy and he will win the election.
I am not being a pessimist but a realist. Americans want us to fight this thing to win it. If, the president, because of political correctness is not willing to do what needs to be done, i.e. KILL THEM, then he will lose and it is time to pick up our marbles, come home, fortify our own little “island America” and wait for the Islamic hordes to inevitably attack us from within and from without (something they are actively preparing to do). The mosques here in the USA are, like the mosque in Najaf also serving as fortresses and safe-havens where Islamic terrorists and insurgents are filling their people with hatred and training with impunity. If Kerry is elected, our government will not enter these “holy places” because it is “insensitive” to do so.
It is now up to President Bush and the decision he makes regarding Al Sader and the insurgents. This decision will determine the outcome of the war in Iraq and the election at home and all of the Republican conventions, political slogans, balloons in the world will not matter, only the flickering TV images of Al Saddar defiantly thumbing his nose at America, killing our men and continuing to overthrow the government in Iraq will!
I, and millions of others are praying that the President will do what is right, not what is “politically correct” or convenient.
Only if don't respond appropriately by blowing their unwashed butts and their "holy City" to the hell from which they sprang.
These people are cowards, lunatics and fanatics. The only thing that impresses them is raw force, not European style diplomacy.
Here's 10 bucks give a call to the American generals and give them your "expert" advice.
Give our friends in the 11th MEF time. Hammorabi's site is, basically, a rumor page, just like Zayed's. Operations in Najaf have basically been concluded successfully. We are not to enter the Shrine of Imam Ali, where the goobers are holed up. We've cleared the cemetary. We really romped 'em yesterday, folks. Don't kid yourselves.
We have to let the Iraqis conclude this because, at bottom, this is an Iraqi power struggle going on. Sadr just wants his cut of the power. He realizes that the Americans are going to be gone someday. What happens to him and his organization after they are gone, when no one can actually protect him? What if Allawi turns out to be a badass Shi'a strongman?
We can't go and make the central government look like a bunch of girlie men, can we?
Besides, we have to keep our powder dry. Fallujah and Ramadi will brew up again, soon, and that's the decisive theater of combat.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
Look for this cycle coming from state, not 1600.
I get the feeling that W is the type of commander that leaves his field leaders alone to prosecute his policy. I think the arabist state department would be the author of this kind of counterproductive protocol.
stopping when momentum is on your side is costly.....in both momentum and lives.
Pray for the troops,
"Well ge you lost the Najf arguement, now go into illeagal immigration."
I don't think so. The only way to deal wiuth Najaf and Sadr is to destroy Sadr. If you can't destroy him without destroying Najaf, too bad. It goes up in smoke too. there is only one way to fight a war and that is totally. read about Sherman, or Caesar. War is not for the quesy. The time for comapssion and symapthy is AFTER your enemy is on his knees, not when he's threatening you with a naked sword.
"BTW, basically all the homegrown terrorists don't have hispanic surmnames."
Did I say Hispanics were terrorists? Hardly. The problem there is a total alteration from a Anglo-based society to one that is predominantly Hispanic. America is a nation of different groups and no one single group should be allowed to dominate it.
"But you can keep on, IMO, ranting, that's your right as an American."
Muy Gracias.
JMO, you accused me of not being able to have a single train of thought.
Your replies on this thread have been a text book example of the concept of projecting one weaknesses to another.
Perhaps it is time to seriously consider reducing the Mahdi terrorists to rubble yet leave the mosque standing with the Neutron B?
We have American troops in Iraq because they had a nutjob dictator who was plotting to kill us, we beat their butts, and now our military takes orders from them.
Maybe you missed the news--Iraq officially became a sovereign nation again on June 28th.
Now I get it.
I'm not sure you do.
Thanks for explaining that to me. Sometimes I get confused.
Actually, from your posts, it's a lot more often than "sometimes." Are you outwitted by inanimate objects as often as it appears?
Negotiate what??? Why is this guy still wasting perfectly good oxygen?
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