Iraqi troops urged to abandon fight From correspondents in Baghdad November 9, 2004 Iraqi Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada SADR today condemned the US-led assault on the city of Fallujah and appealed to Iraqi soldiers to abandon Americans in the fight.
"Let us condemn the invasion of Fallujah and ask our sons in the national guard and police force not to become instruments of the occupation forces," Sheikh Abdel Hadi Darraji said.
US and Iraqi forces have unleashed an all-out offensive to seize Fallujah from the hands of rebels, with marines advancing toward the city centre following massive strikes by artillery and warplanes.
Shortly before the attack, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi rallied Iraqi troops at the main US military base of Camp Fallujah, telling them they needed to avenge the deaths of innocent Iraqis.
"You need to avenge the victims of the terrorists like the 37 children who were killed in Baghdad and the 49 of your colleagues who were slaughtered," he said, referring to two of the deadliest attacks unleashed by insurgents loyal to Iraq's most wanted militant and al-Qaeda frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
AFP: 11/8/2004
BAGHDAD, Nov 8 (AFP) - A car bomb exploded outside the emergency unit of one of Baghdad's main hospitals in the southwest of the Iraqi capital late Monday causing an unknown number of victims, an official at the Yarmuk hospital said.
"A car bomb exploded at the gate of the emergency department, there were a lot of people wounded and dead," the official told AFP.
Patients, staff and guards were among the victims, said the official, who declined to give his name.
Just hours early, Yarmuk hospital recieved three dead and 45 wounded after suspected car bombs exploded just minutes apart outside two churches in Baghdad.
The attacks came as US and Iraqi forces stormed the rebel enclave of Fallujah in an operation to crush the insurgency in Iraq ahead of elections planned for January.
Sadr's men to stand for election in Iraq poll
Some followers of radical Shia leader Moqtada al-Sadr will run in Iraq's parliamentary elections scheduled for January as part of an alliance of Shia parties, representatives of the movement said yesterday.
The declaration by Sadr officials coincided with an announcement by representatives of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the senior Iraqi cleric sponsoring the list, that agreement had been reached among Iraq's main Shia parties on how to divide up the seats.
"We achieved a fair share of the list. We will participate in the elections," said Mahmoud al-Sudany, a Sadr spokesman in Sadr City, the suburb of north-east Baghdad where the movement commands the loyalty of voters estimated to run into the hundreds of thousands.
Fallujah assault not justified: Sadr
Iran supporting al-Qaida terror
U.S. military, intelligence services now certain Tehran backing Iraq Islamists tied to bin LadenAccording to Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, al-Qaida-linked terrorists have been observed moving supplies and new recruits from Iran to Iraq, say the sources. While it has long been known Iran was backing the uprising led by Moqtada al-Sadr in the southern Shiite region of Iraq, the Iranian ties to Sunni Islamist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist leader who has pledged his allegiance to Osama bin Laden, has not been certain.
Car bomb wounds security chief of Iraq's Kufa
06 Nov 2004 10:06:17 GMT Source: Reuters
KUFA, Iraq, Nov 6 (Reuters) - A car bomb explosion wounded the head of security in the Shi'ite Muslim shrine town of Kufa in southern Iraq on Saturday, witnesses said.
They said several people were wounded when the bomb went off as a convoy carrying the security chief, Abdel-Aal al-Kufi, passed through the town, 150 km (94 miles) south of Baghdad.
Kufa has been a stronghold for anti-U.S. Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose followers left the town in August after he agreed to end a revolt that led to weeks of heavy fighting with U.S.-led troops there and in nearby Najaf.
Iraqi security forces later banned Sadr followers from praying in Kufa, where the young cleric once preached weekly.