Cleric Tells Militia to Turn Over Shrine (refuses to disband milita)

[Barrett808]

Cleric Tells Militia to Turn Over Shrine
By ABDUL HUSSEIN AL-OBEIDI, Associated Press Writer

NAJAF, Iraq - An aide to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said the militant leader instructed his followers late Thursday to turn over the keys of the revered Shiite shrine they were hiding in to top religious authorities in Iraq.

Aws al-Khafaji, the head of al-Sadr's office in Nasiriya, told the pan-Arab Al-Jazeera television station that the cleric asked his Mahdi Army militia to give control of the revered Imam Ali Shrine compound to officials from the office of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top Shiite Muslim cleric.

The government had called on al-Sadr's followers to lay down their arms, evacuate the shrine and disband their militia or Iraqi forces would storm the holy site and wipe them out.

Al-Arabiya television showed a copy of a letter al-Sadr reportedly sent to his followers late Thursday. The handwritten letter had al-Sadr's office's seal, but not his signature, the station said.

"I call on the religious authority again to receive the shrine so that it won't be taken by the hands of the enemy and of treason. I have offered it to you before and you have refused before the (latest) incidents," the letter read.

(more)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040819/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq&cid=540&ncid=1480

[Ghetto_Boy]

1. I'll believe it when I see it..........

[skip fox]

2. another

http://newsfromrussia.com/world/2004/08/18/55465.html

But I'm listening to Najaf fighting right now.

[Fridays Child]

3. Listening to it? Do you have an audio stream?

?