BAGHDAD, Iraq - A top aide to firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who appealed to kidnappers to free a Western journalist, said Friday they had promised to release him. The pan-Arab television station Al-Jazeera reported Thursday that a militant group calling itself the Martyrs Brigade had abducted New York journalist Micah Garen and threatened to kill him within 48 hours unless U.S. pulled out of the wear-shattered city of Najaf. Sheik Aws al-Khafaji, a top aide to al-Sadr whose rebel Mahdi army has been fighting coalition forces in Najaf for two weeks, said he had spoken Friday to the kidnappers,...