Posted on 08/21/2004 12:31:23 AM PDT by ppaul
NAJAF, Iraq -- Militants loyal to firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said Saturday that they had handed over the keys to a revered Muslim shrine in the holy city of Najaf to top Shiite religious leaders, a move that marks a crucial step toward ending two weeks of fighting. The militants, however, remain in control of the Imam Ali Shrine while final details of the transfer are worked out, said al-Sadr aide Ahmed al-Shaibany.
Al-Sadr's militia had moved their guns out the shrine on Friday, but the militiamen themselves stayed as negotiators tried to wrangle over getting the militants out of the compound and easing the conflict that has killed dozens of people and wounded hundreds as al-Sadr's militia battle a joint U.S.-Iraq force.
The keys were handed over to representatives of Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, who is in a London hospital for treatment of a heart problem, al-Shaibany said Saturday.
"We handed over the keys to al-Sistani's office, but the actual handing over of the shrine has not happened yet," al-Shaibany said. "There are some issues that still need to be arranged and we are waiting a committee from al-Sistani's office to finish the procedure."
He said those issues included handing over gold and money stored in the shrine compound, but gave no other details. Al-Sistani's aides could not immediately be reached for comment.
The removal of weapons Friday and pledge to hand over keys to religious authorities offered a face-saving way to end fierce fighting between U.S. and Iraqi forces and al-Sadr's militia that has killed scores of people.
A peaceful pullout mediated by religious authorities would allow Iraq's interim government to keep its pledge not to negotiate and let the militants say they had not capitulated to U.S.-led troops.
The shrine's keys are for the shrine compound's outer gates, inner doors and safes.
Earlier this week, al-Sadr's militants rejected a government ultimatum to withdraw from the shrine or face an assault. Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi backed off the threat after the new offer from al-Sadr, and his national security adviser reiterated that the government wanted al-Sadr to join the political process.
Al-Sadr has said previously he would not give in to the government demand to disband his militia and take up politics. It remained unclear how the government would react if that demand went unmet.
Najaf appeared to be largely calm on Saturday, unlike the fierce fighting which raged in the city earlier this week. Fighting between Thursday and Friday mornings killed 77 people and wounded 70 others, officials said.
On Friday, militants could be seen around the shrine before sundown, circulating in the adjacent Old City district. Those who entered the Imam Ali compound left their guns with comrades outside, then reclaimed them when they exited. Inside the compound, unarmed fighters mingled with civilians.
An Associated Press reporter saw no weapons in the shrine. It was not possible to check whether any weapons were hidden inside, though militia leaders denied any were. No police or Iraqi security forces were in the shrine.
It was not clear if the militia wanted its men to be able to stay in the compound, which they have used as a refuge. Al-Sistani's representatives insisted the fighters had to leave before they would take responsibility for the shrine.
"If they want to vacate the holy shrine compound and close the doors, then the office of the religious authority in holy Najaf will take these keys," an al-Sistani aide, Sheik Hamed Khafaf said, from London. "Until now, this hasn't happened."
The government was not part of the talks, and it continued to demand that al-Sadr disband his militia and join in peaceful politics and help create a democracy for Iraqis.
"We need to get rid of this militia and we need to get them to disarm and leave the shrine," Iraqi National Security adviser Mouaffaq al-Rubaie told CNN. "There's no way we can build democracy in this country with a militia all over the country."
A previous uprising led by al-Sadr in the spring ended with a series of truces that kept his militia intact to fight in a new round of violence that started Aug. 5. The government and the U.S. military have said any resolution to the fighting should ensure there is no third round.
Meanwhile, insurgents ambushed a U.S. military patrol with a bomb Friday in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, killing two American soldiers and wounding three, said Maj. Neal O'Brien, a spokesman for the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division.
The military also reported that two Marines had been killed in action in the restive Anbar province, one on Wednesday and the other on Thursday. As of Thursday, 947 U.S. personnel had died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq in March 2003, according to the U.S. Defense Department.
Meanwhile, an aide to al-Sadr said kidnappers promised Friday to release an American journalist abducted in the southern city of Nasiriyah on Aug. 13.
The kidnappers, calling themselves the Martyrs Brigade, threatened a day earlier to kill Micah Garen of New York within 48 hours. But an al-Sadr aide, Sheik Aws al-Khafaji, said he spoke with the militants and was told they would release Garen later Friday. By the end of the day, however, there were no reports that Garen had been released.
Garen appeared in a video aired Friday on Al-Jazeera saying his captors were treating him well. "I am an American journalist in Iraq and I've been asked to deliver a message," he said. "I am in captivity and being treated well."
The Italian Foreign Ministry said Friday that Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni had gone missing in Iraq. Baldoni, a freelance journalist who came to Iraq for the news magazine Diario, was believed to have been in Najaf, the ministry said.
Link to article: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq
Al-Sadrfightersterrorists hand over keys to shrineBFD.
So they handed over the keys to Satan's bigwigs.
Where is Captain Bunkteeth? Somebody needs to ventilate his head for him so he doen't get any ideas after we leave.
They have keys? Here we spent all this time surrounding the place with the military, and all we needed was a good locksmith.
I'd recommend that the locks be changed - just in case they made copies.
LOL! ROTFLMAO!!
Lemme translate that from Media Liberalese to English: They have not left.
45,605 people have died on American highways since Bush declared an end to 'major combat'.
I picked up on that too
This is beyond beleif. We'd let OBL turn over some keys and walk away if we found him in a "shrine." Too bad for Saddam that he didn't figure this out and find a mosque to hide in instead of a hole. He'd still be free.
How will Kerry wage a more sensitive war than this?
they gave up the keys...
but refuse to turn over the remote control devices for blowing the whole damn thing up... or leave.
Why do I feel like Sadr, is laughing his arse off, from his air conditioned villa in Iran?
Sadr could have dynamited that mosque if he wanted, and at least half of Iraq would be blaming the US. Let's get him out of there first and THEN arrange for a little accident.
I demand to know who supplied the intelligence that suggested we should pave our natural habitats and construct individual locomotive machines called automobiles? It's time for congressional hearings!
So the reason they're not leaving is because of the gold and money? Sheesh, you just can't get good religious extremists this days. Used to be, religious extremists would died for their brand of faith. These days, it's the gold. Double sheesh.
"I think America can do better. I think that America needs to join the larger international community in fighting traffic deaths, highway littering, and double parking. When I received my driver's license, I proudly answered my nation's call and reported for duty on the road. But as I saw the immorality of this highway carnage, as I saw that all of this driving was a corporate conspiracy between Detroit and Big Oil, as I saw that this was a war that American could not win, I felt compelled to testify about what I saw and what I felt was right. That's why I threw my AAA card over the White House fence in protest. That's why I don't do my own driving anymore. That's why today I think it is high time for us to put UN inspectors back on the job. Only this time, let's have the inspectors also track down the speeders, the drunk drivers, the SUVs, the Harleys, and pickup trucks of any kind--on the New Jersey Turnpike in the Garden State, along I-5 in the vote-rich Golden State, along I-95 in the Sunshine State, from the mountains, to the valleys, to the ocean, white with foam. And speaking of foam, I support having those UN inspectors monitor the polls on the first Tuesday in November so that . . . [blah, blah, blah]."
Yep, they gave them the keys, and the remote for the cable. They left the bathrooms kind of a mess, though, and there's no beer left in the refrigerator.
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