Iran calls for meeting on Iraq 'catastrophe'
Bakersfield Californian ^ | 8/20/04 | Ali Akbar Dareini - AP
Posted on 08/20/2004 11:19:29 AM CDT by NormsRevenge
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iranian President Mohammad Khatami called on Muslim countries Friday to hold an urgent meeting to discuss the "catastrophe" in Iraq, particularly the 2-week standoff in the holy city of Najaf.
Khatami urged the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference to hold an emergency summit and said immediate action should be taken to end the escalating violence in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf, where militiamen loyal to militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have been fighting U.S. and Iraqi forces.
"What is happening in Iraq is a spiritual and human catastrophe and IMMEDIATE ACTION MUST BE TAKEN TO STOP THE SPREAD OF THE CATASTROPHE (emphasis mine), particularly in Najaf," Khatami said in a telephone conversation with the head of the OIC Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
On Friday, the Najaf uprising, centered on the revered Imam Ali Shrine, appeared to be drawing to an end as militants from al-Sadr's Mahdi Army removed weapons from the holy site.
The militants had been using the shrine, one of Shiite Islam's holiest, as a hideout while attacking U.S. and Iraqi forces. Earlier Friday they offered to give control of the shrine to Shiite religious authorities, who accepted the offer in principle.
It was unclear how Friday's apparent easing of the crisis in Najaf would affect Khatami's summit call.
Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi urged countries neighboring Iraq to hold an urgent meeting on the Najaf crisis.
Kharrazi first raised his meeting idea in a telephone call to Jordanian counterpart Marwan Muasher on Wednesday, but Jordan's response was not immediately made public.
The Syrian government supported Kharrazi's call, Syria's official news agency quoted an unnamed Foreign Ministry official as saying. Syria has been a loud opponent of the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
In Tehran, Iranians staged street protests Friday over the violence in Najaf, the third holiest city to Shiite Muslims after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, and condemned "the slaughter of the Iraqi people and the desecration of holy sites and cities of the country by the U.S. military in Iraq."
The demonstrators also described Iraq's interim government as "illegitimate" and a "puppet" of the United States, IRNA reported, and URGED MUSLIM COUNTRIES TO DISPATCH A MILITARY FORCE (emphasis mine) to defend Najaf's holy sites.
In his conversation with OIC chief Badawi, who is also Malaysia's prime minister, Khatami said the Iraqi interim government was facing a difficult situation in Najaf and that Iran was interested in seeing a stable Iraq.
"Allowing these conditions to continue and keeping silent in the face of these events will create grater problems for us," Khatami warned.
It was unclear if a meeting would be held, but Iran's call reflects the growing concern in the Middle East over violence in Iraq and, in particular, Najaf.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1195570/posts
No evidence that Iran is aiding Sadr militia: US
hindustantimes.com ^ | Friday, August 20, 2004 | Agence France-Presse
The United States has no conclusive evidence that radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr has received arms from Iran, but refuses to rule out the possibility, a senior US official said.
"There are certainly those charges being made, but I guess we are hesitant to say definitively 'yes' or definitively 'no' because we just don't have conclusive evidence it's either validated or knocked down," a senior State Department official told reporters on Thursday.
For more than two weeks, Sadr's Mehdi Army has been locked in heavy fighting with US-led Iraqi government forces on a mission to crush his militia in the holy city of Najaf.
Noting the "porous border" with Iran, the US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said "it's certainly plausible" that Sadr was receiving weapons from Iran, but added that Washington could not be certain.
"I don't know if we've traced weapons in the hands of Mehdi people across the border to Iran," the official said. "There are plenty of weapons in Iraq you don't have to rely on Iran for them.
"Obviously they are getting their guns from somebody, but I don't think we are ready to say it is the Iranian government that's doing it."
On August 10, State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said the United States was concerned by suggestions that Iran is involved in deadly unrest in Iraq's Shiite holy city of Najaf and maintained it was not in Tehran's interest to foment instability in its neighbour.
But he declined to confirm Iraqi Defence Minister Hazem Shaalan's claim that militiamen loyal to Sadr were receiving weapons from Iran.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1195574/posts
They're setting the table:
1) Irrational demands (U.K., give us all your technology!)
2) Threat of pre-emption against Israel by attacking the U.S.
3) Direct intervention in Najaf as a "humanitarian" gesture to the Iraqi Shiites.
Methinks the mullahs doesn't know the meaning of "catastrophe", but they may shortly...