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.
bump
This country has been PCed to death ( including the military )and that includes Bush
If he wasn't this farce of who gets searched at airports wouldn't exist and our southern borders would be sealed and the oil fields would be seized and Muslim communities here in the USA would be interned until the terroir threat world wide is crushed
Bush would be on TV at least MONTHLY with war progress updates
That is why eventually we are going to lose this war and China will rule the world cause they will not have any quams about dealing with the muslims
It doesn’t really require an extensive military knowledge to understand a person like Sadr, and that letting him go will only allow him to attack again. It doesn’t take General Patton to realize that since Sadr is already a murderer and terrorist and there is no way he is suddenly going to become compassionate and peaceful through a ceasefire.
So says 5 star General Barney Gumble.
How about this for a deal, Barney. If you have heart surgery, a rank surgery amateur like me will be in the operating room to tell the highly trained surgeon how to do his job.
Seems that you wouldn't mind since you are placing yourself in the Military Commander's warroom.
"Maybe you missed the news--Iraq officially became a sovereign nation again on June 28th."
Oh, now I get it. We beat the butt of a murdering dictator who was tryin to kill us all, destroy his army, but allow the remnants of that army to punch us in the eye, take hostages with impugnity, blow up oil wells, keep our troops there as a punching bag, and give the Iraqis back the freedom they never enjoyed in the first place.
That's brilliant!! Did Colin Powell figure this out himrself or did you help him with it.
"Actually, from your posts, it's a lot more often than "sometimes." Are you outwitted by inanimate objects as often as it appears?"
Hmmm. I think you are trying to insult me. If you had half the brain to go with your comments I might be offended, but I make allowances for the handicapped.
Per your reply #83, JMO, you shouldn't take your expertise at the board game Risk into the real world.
Dane,
What if we spread the word around Najaf that Janet Reno was "enroute"
to "clean up" the mosque ?
I'm with you.....
You keep ducking my point. You think I need to be a military commander to offer an opinion on general policy….mostly because it differs from Bush’s. I’m not saying how they should attack, but just that should instead of wallowing in yet another ceasefire. You make the medical analogy: Well if someone falls and breaks their leg, I don’t need to be a doctor to see that they need to go to surgery and then have a cast put on the leg. I’m not telling the doctor how to put a cast on, but if the hospital sent the guy away without a cast, I’m going to question it, and I don’t need to be a doctor to do so. Understand my point?
Men, I'm gonna have to cease and desist from watching any news coverage of this latest PC battle. Serious, I just can't take it anymore. I want to go to sleep tonight and dream. In this dream, there will emerge a Marine heavy weapons platoon commander, a true renegade that has made up his mind to sacrifice his career and say @#$$-it. Assembles about 48 hard chargers, armed to the teeth, and charge this &%^-$#@$# Mosque wearing N Vision,under the cover of darkness. Wiping out these vermin, once and for all.
The timid might say, yea and get men killed, well, by letting the situation fester, it will cost more lives down the line. Its only a dream right? %$#%-em, I can't deal with this bull- anymore. We can't do nothing right anymore.It really is painful. I'm going fishing and will try to think of how it was before PC dominated our political lives.I wonder if "Cesty" Puller was the tactical commander over there what he would think of this PC war fighting. PS, Amber Frey must've had some good #$%^%!
There should be NO TERMS except the following
Immediate and UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER
Men, I'm gonna have to cease and desist from watching any news coverage of this latest PC battle. Serious, I just can't take it anymore. I want to go to sleep tonight and dream. In this dream, there will emerge a Marine heavy weapons platoon commander, a true renegade that has made up his mind to sacrifice his career and say ....-it. Assembles about 48 hard chargers, armed to the teeth, and assaults this ...-.... Mosque wearing N Vision,under the cover of darkness. Wiping out these vermin, once and for all.
The timid might say, yea and get men killed, well, by letting the situation fester, it will cost more lives down the line. Its only a dream right? ....-em, I can't deal with this bull- anymore. We can't do nothing right anymore.It really is painful. I'm going fishing and will try to think of how it was before PC dominated our political lives.I wonder if "Cesty" Puller was the tactical commander over there what he would think of this PC war fighting. PS, Amber Frey must've had some good .....!
I might add Japan and Germany didn't give up their fanaticism until they got a REAL ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT and the muslims won't either
Fine Uncle Bob, you live it and enjoy it, suck it up. Its good ani't it? What you are witnessing, in all of this stuff should be called, Death of a Nation... I'm voting for Bush, but he's anything than inspirational. He's proving here, not to be a good closer either. If I were him, I'd personally call the top dog in Iraq and say to the commander, " by lunchtime, I want full victory at all cost.Attack on all fronts"..
It's the politicians we're discussing, not the military. You know, the folks who think it's a brilliant idea to give amnesty to illegals so they can collect more welfare ? And employers can have their payrolls subsidized by taxpayers ?
I am getting tired of this cycle as well. You don't call a ceasefire with a nest of rattlesnakes, you wipe them out, even if they are under the church steps.
I'm a Bush supporter but this is wrong.
i thought cheney said we will not fight a "sensitive" war....
I thought that muslims never lie? Turn the Marines loose and the problem will be solved. I am sick of all this muslim sensitivity. If the shoe were on the other foot, the mooselems would happily destroy a christian church with all occupants including women and children.(Infidels) The P.C. war tactics need to cease and let the Marines do their job. If we allow a truce, then we will fight them again later. Destroy the mosque and if there is a survivor ask him, "Where's Your Allah Now." God Loves The Infantry. Bush/Cheney2004
Death of a Nation.
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