An Iraqi delegation sent by a national conference in Baghdad flew to besieged Najaf by helicopter today to present radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr with a peace proposal aimed at ending a violent insurgency wracking the holy city.

Delegates at Iraq’s National Conference called on radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to abandon his uprising against US and Iraqi troops and pull his fighters out of a holy shrine in Najaf.