Najaf truce after nine days of fighting

Iraqi officials and aides to a radical Shiite cleric were trying to negotiate an end to nine days of fighting in the holy city of Najaf today after US forces suspended an offensive against Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia.

Aides said al-Sadr had been injured by shrapnel, but that was denied by Iraqi officials.

The US army said it had suspended offensive operations against al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia, who are holed up the city’s vast cemetery and the Imam Ali shrine, one of the holiest sites to Shiite Muslims.

“We are allowed to engage the enemy only in self defence and long enough to break contact,” said Major Bob Pizzateli. “That was a blanket order for everybody.”

He said the militia appeared to have stopped most attacks as well, and the city appeared quieter a day after the US military announced it had begun a major offensive to rout the militants.

“Hopefully the talks will go well and everything will be resolved peacefully,” Pizzateli said.

Najaf Governor Adnan al-Zurufi said the talks were between Iraqi government officials and al-Sadr’s representatives. National Security Adviser Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie travelled to Najaf on Thursday. US officials were not involved in the talks, al-Zurufi said.

Despite the talks, the US army said it was still maintaining a cordon around the shrine, the cemetery and Najaf’s old city, where the militants had taken refuge.

Al-Sadr, who has led an uprising against coalition troops for more than a week in the holy city, was hit by shrapnel in the chest and twice in a leg as he met members of his Mahdi Army militia near the Imam Ali shrine early today, said aide Haider al-Tousi.

Another of al-Sadr’s spokesmen said the cleric’s condition was stable. He may be holed up in the compound housing the revered shrine, along with his loyalists, while one aide, Haider al-Tousi, said he was moved to an unknown destination.

Al-Sadr urged his followers to remain calm.

“We got a letter from him saying ‘Be steadfast and behave rationally, don’t surrender to your emotions,”’ said Aws al-Khafaji at al-Sadr’s office in the southern town of Nasiriyah,

One of Iraq’s most senior Shiite leaders called for an end to fighting in Najaf as Iraqis took to the streets across the country to protest the ongoing violence.

Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Taqi al-Modaresi said: “What is going on in Najaf and the rest of the Iraqi cities is a violation of sanctities, an aggression on holy sites and shedding of innocent blood that could lead to a vicious civil war.”

In Baghdad, thousands of al-Sadr supporters gathered outside the Green Zone, the fortified enclave housing most Iraqi government ministries, as well as the US and British embassies.