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| Iraqi Rebels will Pay https://warthogterritory.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=6824 |
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| Author: | Praxus [ 18 Aug 2004, 10:51 ] |
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http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/sto ... 0818MAC102 Iraq prepares assault on Najaf, gives rebels hours By Khaled Farhan NAJAF, Iraq, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Iraq's defence minister gave Shi'ite militiamen in the holy city of Najaf hours to surrender on Wednesday, warning that troops were preparing for a major assault to "teach them a lesson they will never forget." Explosions and gunfire echoed through the streets as U.S. forces battled Mehdi Army militiamen loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose two-week-old uprising poses the biggest challenge yet to Iraq's interim government. Sadr's fighters are taking shelter in Najaf's Imam Ali shrine, hoping their opponents will not dare to attack one of the holiest sites for Iraq's majority Shi'ites. But Defence Minister Hazim al-Shaalan said an assault was imminent. "They have a chance. In the next few hours they have to surrender themselves and their weapons," Shaalan said in the city after meeting local officials. "We are in the process of completing all our military preparations... We will teach them a lesson they will never forget," he said. American marines and soldiers have been doing the bulk of the fighting in Najaf, but Shaalan said Iraqi forces had been training to storm the shrine complex and could complete such an operation within hours. "It will be Iraqis who enter the shrine... there will be no American role in this, except giving air protection and protecting some roads leading to the shrine. But the entry (of the shrine) will be 100 percent Iraqi," Shaalan told Al Arabiya, a pan-Arab television channel, in Najaf. The director of Najaf's main hospital, Falah al-Muhana, said 29 people had been brought in killed or wounded from the clashes on Wednesday, but there were no precise figures. U.S. casualties are treated at their own bases. Sadr's uprising has fuelled clashes in other Shi'ite cities in southern Iraq and divided a national conference in Baghdad intended to advance Iraq's progress towards democracy. Insurgents fired a mortar bomb near the conference venue on Wednesday, witnesses said. Two more mortars were fired near the Interior Ministry in Baghdad, a ministry spokesman said. No casualties were reported in either attack. The Baghdad conference was due to announce members of a new council to oversee the interim government later on Wednesday, the meeting prolonged by disputes over Najaf and wrangling over the makeup of the council. A delegation from the conference flew to Najaf on Tuesday to try to broker an end to the fighting that erupted on August 5, but Sadr refused to meet them. DILEMMA The Najaf uprising has exposed Iraq's fragile security situation and the interim government's reliance on U.S. troops, posing interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi with a major dilemma ahead of elections in January. Allawi must be seen to resolve the challenge to his authority, but cannot afford to enrage the country's Shi'ite majority by using heavy-handed tactics near Najaf's shrines. U.S. officers said they had not provoked clashes during the delegation's visit to Najaf on Tuesday, saying fighters from Sadr's Mehdi Army had attacked them first. Sadr's fighters accuse U.S. troops of starting the fighting earlier this month. The uprising has inflicted a heavy toll of dead and wounded among civilians. Iraq's health ministry said on Wednesday 21 people had been killed in clashes in Baghdad, Basra, Diwaniya and Najaf and dozens wounded in the past 24 hours. Clashes continued in the Iraqi capital on Wednesday. Tensions in Najaf have sharpened divisions among the 1,300 delegates meeting in Baghdad to choose the new 100-member council, designed to act as a watchdog over the interim government. The conference had been due to announce the membership of the council on Tuesday, but was extended to a fourth day amid wrangling among delegates. The conference, which includes religious and political leaders, is to pick 81 candidates, while the remaining 19 will come from Iraq's now defunct governing council. The council will be able to veto legislation with a two-thirds majority, approve the 2005 budget and appoint a new prime minister or president should either quit or die in office. Violence erupted on Tuesday in the oil port city of Basra, where Shi'ite militiamen fought gunbattles with British troops. One British soldier was killed and others wounded, according to the Ministry of Defence in London. Basra was quiet on Wednesday, the British military said. (Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Dean Yates in Baghdad and Andrew Hammond in Dubai) Force overcome by force. (Vi Victa Vis) -Cicero Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude. -Cicero |
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| Author: | M21 Sniper [ 18 Aug 2004, 12:20 ] |
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I'll believe it when i see it. "I came here to kick ass and chew bubblegum...and i'm all out of bubblegum". |
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