A Discreet and Harrowing Flight from Najaf

[seemslikeadream]

Iraqis Seek Safety With Relatives Living Elsewhere

By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, August 14, 2004; Page A18

Hadeel and her family joined the surreptitious traffic of thousands of refugees fleeing the fighting in Najaf this week, seeking shelter with relatives and friends in other towns and cities. They live crowded into their hosts' homes or in cheap hotel rooms, watching smoke rise over their neighborhoods in Najaf on the television news, waiting until the shooting stops and it is no longer dangerous to go home.


The refugees from Najaf are the latest current of desperate travelers seeking to avoid the violence in Iraq. Some families flee the gunfire in Baghdad by going to the relatively quiet Kurdish areas in the north. Christians flee the bombings of their churches by traveling to Syria in cars overloaded with their goods. Other Iraqi families wait in Amman, the capital of neighboring Jordan, to see if their home country will become peaceful.


"When the Americans first came, we were happy to see them. We had been so mistreated by the old regime," Qani said of Iraq's Shiites, who make up a majority of the population but historically have been persecuted. "But after these rounds of fighting, the Americans shoot indiscriminately, and the people have turned around. We are no longer happy to see the Americans."


"This Mahdi Army has been able to stand in the face off the biggest and strongest power in the world," Qani said. "People who really believe in this fight are ready to defend it with their lives. In the beginning, few people supported him. Now he has more than 90 percent of the people."
more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63729-2004Aug13.html

[mom cat]

1. Thank you for this excellent post. I nominated it for the front page.

[seemslikeadream]

4. Truce Talks Collapse in Holy City of Najaf

NAJAF, Iraq Aug. 14, 2004 — Truce talks between Shiite militants and Iraqi officials broke down Saturday, raising the prospect of a return to the fierce fighting between militiamen and U.S-Iraqi forces that has shaken the holy city of Najaf for more than a week.
The government's chief negotiator, Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie, said talks were making no progress and that he was leaving Najaf. Aides to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr blamed the United States and the Iraqi government on the breakdown.

The negotiations had raised hopes for a resolution to the uprising by al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, which has posed deep security and political problems for Iraq's fledgling interim government. After nine days of heavy fighting, Najaf has been quiet since Friday, when U.S. forces halted a major offensive against the militiamen to give talks a chance.

"I feel deep sorrow and regret to announce the failure of the efforts we have exerted to end the crisis in Iraq peacefully," said al-Rubaie, who serves in the government has national security adviser.

"Our goal was to spare blood, preserve security and for the militias to put down their weapons," he said, without giving specifics on what led to the breakdown
more
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040814_875.html


Thanks soulsick in jp

[seemslikeadream]

5. Fighting set to resume in Najaf

Sat 14 August, 2004 16:48


By Khaled Farhan

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. and Iraqi forces are poised to resume fighting rebel Shi'ite militia in the holy city of Najaf after peace talks aimed at ending an uprising that has killed hundreds collapsed.

Iraq's national security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie told a news conference in Najaf on Saturday that the embattled U.S.-backed interim government had given up trying to reach a deal with radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army in the southern city.

"It is with deep sorrow and regret that I announce the failure of efforts to end the crisis in Iraq peacefully. Our goal was to spare more blood, preserve security and for the militias to lay down their arms," Rubaie said.

"The Iraqi interim government is resuming military clearing operations to ... establish law and order in this holy city."

An uneasy truce has held in Najaf since Friday, when U.S. troops and tanks loosened their noose around the Imam Ali Mosque and an ancient cemetery where Sadr and his followers have holed up. The firebrand cleric has vowed to fight to the death.

Najaf's 10-day conflict has ignited fighting in seven other cities and mass street protests that threaten to undermine the authority of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi barely seven weeks since he took power from U.S.-led occupiers.

Thousands of protesters from other parts of southern Iraq have streamed to Najaf and joined Sadr in the Imam Ali Mosque, the holiest Shi'ite Islamic site in Iraq.

The peace talks failed on the eve of a national conference aimed at advancing Iraq's stuttering progress towards democracy.

A Sadr aide blamed Allawi for the collapse.

"You have to know, we had agreed with Rubaie on all points but Allawi called him back and he ended the issue," Ali Samseem told Al Jazeera television without elaborating.

Rubaie said too little progress had been made. "My government felt that after three days, enough is enough."

Another Sadr aide claimed Allawi would order an assault on the shrine within the next day or two.

FIGHTING IN OTHER CITIES

In fresh fighting elsewhere, U.S. forces said they killed about 50 insurgents near the northern Iraqi town of Samarra, a mainly Sunni Muslim area where U.S. troops have launched repeated raids to flush out guerrillas.

Warplanes dropped 500-pound bombs, while insurgents responded with rifle fire and rocket-propelled grenades, a U.S. military statement said, adding there were no U.S. casualties.

Casting doubt on the toll, Iraqi police in Samarra said at least five people were killed and 50 wounded in fighting in the area, 100 km (62 miles) north of Baghdad.

Fighting also raged between U.S. troops and Sadr followers in the southern Shi'ite town of Hilla overnight. Forty fighters and three police were killed, Iraq's interior ministry said, although the health ministry said 10 people were killed.

Before the talks collapsed in Najaf, some residents ventured out to inspect damage from more than a week of fighting.

Militiamen remained in some streets around the Imam Ali Mosque and the nearby vast cemetery, while U.S. forces patrolled other parts of the city.

U.S. troops and Sadr militia fought sporadically on Saturday in Baghdad's Shi'ite Sadr City slum, a routine occurrence in the 16-month insurgency since last year's U.S.-led invasion.

The health ministry said 21 people, mostly civilians, had been killed and more than 270 wounded in clashes involving U.S. forces, Iraqi police and insurgents in Baghdad, Kut and the western al-Anbar province in the past 48 hours.

GROWING PUBLIC SUPPORT

Allawi said last week the political process was open to all, but Sadr, buoyed by growing public support even from Iraqis who oppose his radical views, had appeared in no mood to cut a deal.

The national conference will open in Baghdad on Sunday under intense security, including the imposition of curfews in several parts of the capital. Some 1,300 delegates will pick a 100-member council to oversee the interim government, itself tasked with steering the country to elections in January 2005.

Sadr appeared before his supporters wearing bandages late on Friday, apparently confirming reports by aides that he had been wounded in fighting earlier in the day.

Some 2,000 U.S. servicemen and 1,800 Iraqi security men are deployed around Najaf, a city of 600,000 south of Baghdad.

U.S. forces say they have killed more than 360 Sadr fighters so far in Najaf. Sadr's spokesmen say far fewer have died in what is the second rebellion by the militia in four months.

more
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=565290§ion=news

[seemslikeadream]

6. Demonstrators descend on Najaf as governor expresses hope for truce

Demonstrators descend on Najaf as governor expresses hope for truce agreement in two days
By Todd Pitman, Associated Press, 8/14/2004 07:56


NAJAF, Iraq (AP) Thousands of demonstrators descended on Najaf to show their support Saturday for Shiite militants battling U.S. forces in the holy city as the provincial governor expressed optimism that the crisis would end within the next two days.

Iraqi officials and aides to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have been holding negotiations since U.S. forces on Friday suspended a major offensive against fighters from al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, dug into Najaf's old city.

Al-Sadr seeks a U.S. withdrawal from Najaf and amnesty for all his fighters among other demands in exchange for disarming his followers and pulling them out of the revered Imam Ali shrine and Najaf's old city, where they have taken refuge, aides said.

Najaf Gov. Adnan al-Zurufi said Saturday that the negotiations, led by National Security Adviser Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie, ''have reached a delicate stage.''

more
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/227/world/Demonstrators_descend_on_Najaf:.shtml

[leftchick]

2. this is the reality now....

The majority of Iraqis want the Americans GONE NOW! Me too!

[ilovenicepeople]

3. a bit different then yesterday

someone posted that 98.75% of the people were against Muqtada's intifada,I tend to believe 90% support as a more realistic number.Just ask yourself "What would you do if the tables were turned and Iraq had preemptively invaded the US (if you can get past the "IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN WE'RE THE BEST" attitude)You get the picture."

[seemslikeadream]

7. The shrine of Ali, 4th Caliph of Islam and 1st Imam of Shi'i Islam

City of central Iraq with about 560,000 inhabitants (2003 estimate), lying on the western ridge of the Euphrates River. Najaf is the capital of the Najaf governorate with about 900,000 inhabitants (2003 estimate; 590,000 in the 1987 census).
Najaf's main reason for fame, is the shrine of Ali, 4th Caliph of Islam and 1st Imam of Shi'i Islam. Ali is the actual spiritual founder of all Shi'i sects. The shrine is a grand complex that much resembles the ones of other imams around Iraq. The dome is on top of a huge structure with one great gate, with two minarets on either side. Around the structure a huge courtyard, then another square structure with several smaller gates towards the rest of the city.
Several religious histories are connected to Najaf. According to legends told within a Muslim context, it is said that it is the place where one of Noah's son died as a punishment when he didn't want to enter the Ark. It is said that Abraham and Isaac settled right here, and bought a place called Valley of Peace, that Abraham claimed was a part of heaven. Moreover it is said that 70,000 people will gain immediate entrance to Paradise following their visit to Najaf.

more
http://i-cias.com/e.o/najaf.htm

[seemslikeadream]

8. The Escalating Cycle of Violence in Iraq

...........

It repeats itself: as the invasion ended and the occupation began, the president of Medicins Sans Frontieres USA testified to the House of whichever-it-was on the disastrous consequences of that same deliberate linkage in Afghanistan, while my friend Ibrahim and his MSF colleague Francois were being held prisoner by the old Iraqi government.

It repeats itself: the new leader, Ayad Allawi has closed down Al Jazeera's Baghdad office to see whether they can be bullied into compliance before full expulsion. He's reinstated the death penalty for sedition as well as murder. The Sydney Morning Herald carried credible reports of Allawi personally shooting dead unarmed suspects in custody. Last year's anti-Saddam freedom fighters are this year's 'insurgents', whatever insurging involves, and the US's appointees, Salim and Ahmed Chalabi, among many others, turn out to be corrupt.

Allawi is not seen as a strong leader, does not have broad support and is not able to unite Iraqis. The apparent unity of opposition to the occupation which has arisen in the last half year or so obscures differences which some commentators think are likely to be manifested after elections when all the main groups are, inevitably, disappointed with their respective shares of power.

It repeats itself, only bigger: the devastation faced by Iraqis is reflected in the sickness of returning troops. Of one unit returning from Iraq, almost half have already got malignant tumours, double the already-appalling figures for returnees from the 1991 Gulf War.

more
http://progressivetrail.org/articles/040814Wilding.shtml