Rebel in Najaf Sends Messages of Conciliation

[seemslikeadream]

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 18 - Displaying the brinkmanship that has made him one of the United States' most powerful adversaries in Iraq, the rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr sent last-minute messages of conciliation on Wednesday that appeared to have staved off an imminent assault on his fortress in the country's holiest Shiite shrine.


Mr. Sadr's offer was met with applause by delegates gathered in Baghdad to select a national assembly.

Among senior officials in Washington and Baghdad, however, Mr. Sadr's move was met with deep skepticism.

"I don't think we can trust al-Sadr", said Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser. Iraq's defense minister, Hazim al-Shaalan, issued a statement calling Mr. Sadr's initiative "strange," after his earlier intransigence, and demanding that he substantiate his offer by having his militiamen "immediately deliver their weapons" to Iraqi forces around the shrine.

Even as American and Iraqi officials were weighing Mr. Sadr's intentions, a menacing new dimension was added to the Najaf crisis by a report on Al Jazeera television that Iraqi militants calling themselves the Martyrs' Squad had captured an American journalist, Micah Garen, and threatened to kill him within 48 hours if United States forces did not pull out of Najaf.


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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/19/international/middleeast/19iraq.html

[wtmusic]

1. He's pulling a Saddam on them

right where they're most vulnerable.

[robcon]

2. Mr. Sadr was handed his ass by the delegates....

and told to get out of the shrine in Najaf. He proceeded to agree, and decided to leave the shrine.

[Maple]

3. I assume

you are either being sarcastic, or you haven't been following the situation in Iraq.

[physioex]

4. Bwahahahaha...

Are you that naive or are you being sarcastic? The man has no intention of giving up, and thinks the Iraqi government is illegitimate.

Saddam knew he couldn't control Najaf and stayed the hell away. Too bad we can't say the same for the "coalition"......

[daleo]

5. It sounds like the BFEE doesn't want to take yes for an answer

Either that, or Sadr is just doing a great job of making them look like they haven't got a clue about what is actually going on.

There is no way his militia men will just hand their weapons over. They would be asking for a slaughter, or at least a place in a big naked jump pile in an Iraqi puppet/BFEE prison. Or maybe the dogs.