Iraqi leaders seek to avert US attack
Radical Shiite cleric, Mustaqa al-Sadr, whose al Mahdi army is leading the fierce resistance to the Americans, was photographed leaving the shrine yesterday.
The sons of Iraq's three grand ayatollahs including the most powerful one, Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani met al-Sadr on Monday night in his Najaf office and assured him of their opposition to any American strike.
"They agreed not to allow any hostile act against Sayyed Moqtada al-Sadr and the city of Najaf," said a source who was at the meeting. The delegation also was reportedly trying to work out a compromise to prevent a US attack.
Colonel Dana JH Pittard, the commander of the force, said his troops were aware that a "single shot in Najaf" by US soldiers could outrage Iraq's powerful Shiite majority.
"Look at this as the Shiite Vatican," Pittard said before the deployment.
The grand ayatollahs older, moderate leaders with immense influence among Shiites have long kept the young, fiercely anti-American al-Sadr at arm's length. The dispatch of the delegation reflected the eagerness to avoid bloodshed in Najaf and the new influence that the uprising by the al-Mahdi Army's militia has brought al-Sadr.
In a concession to American demands, al-Sadr ordered his militiamen out of police stations and government buildings in Najaf and the nearby cities of Karbala and Kufa.
Police were back in their stations and on patrols, while al-Sadr black-garbed gunmen largely stayed out of sight.
But the top US commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, said the American mission remained "to kill or capture Muqtada al-Sadr".
The withdrawal of al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army militia from police stations and government buildings in Najaf, Karbala and Kufa was a key US demand. But al-Sadr followers rebuffed demands to disband the militia, which launched a bloody uprising in Baghdad and the south this month.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
