New explosions rock Najaf

[Bluebear]

NAJAF, Iraq - U.S. tanks and troops rolled back into the center of Najaf and battled with Shiite militants Sunday, reigniting violence in the holy city just as delegates in Baghdad opened a conference meant to be a landmark in the country's movement toward democracy.

The collapse of the ceasefire in Najaf after the failure of negotiations cast a shadow over the National Conference in Baghdad, which gathered 1,000 religious, tribal and political leaders from across Iraq. Some of the delegates threatened to walk out unless the government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi put an end to the fighting.

In more of the violence plaguing the country, insurgents fired a mortar barrage hours after the conference opened — apparently targeting Baghdad's Green Zone district where the gathering was taking place but instead hitting a commuter bus station, killing two people and wounding 17 others, according to the Health Ministry.

Also in Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier hours before the conference began. At least 931 U.S. servicemembers have died in Iraq since March 2003.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040815/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_040815191016

[Disturbed]

1. US colonization will fail.

Read these and you will probably agree.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/081604A.shtml

[Just Me]

2. "Dictatorship",....we will force you to accept our will,...

,...as we advertise "democracy" and "freedom",...you will be forced to accept what we impose upon you,...like it or not.

What is wrong with you?

[Rose Siding]

3. Something's afoot. They announced that the Iraqi army would take over

now this. Talks broken, a video (!) supplied by one of the remaining, living cabinet ministers.

snip>
During the negotiations to end the fighting, al-Sadr demanded a U.S. withdrawal from Najaf, the freeing of all Mahdi Army fighters in detention and amnesty for all the fighters in exchange for disarming his followers and pulling them out of the shrine and Najaf's old city, aides said.

But on Saturday, Iraq's National Security Adviser Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie announced the talks had been making no progress and left Najaf. Al-Sadr aides accused Allawi of breaking off negotiations they said were nearing agreement.

Cabinet minister Abdel-Latif said foreign fighters were among the militants captured in Najaf — a repeated government claim — and he played a video that showed interviews with Iranian, Egyptian and Jordanian fighters and boxes of weapons, reportedly from Iran.

[cal04]

4. Offensive resumes in Najaf, prompting desertions of Iraqi troops

U.S. and Iraqi forces launched a renewed assault Sunday on Shiite Muslim militiamen in the southern holy city of Najaf in a risky campaign that was marred from the onset by an outcry from Iraqi politicians and the desertion of dozens of Iraqi troops who refused to fight their countrymen.


More than 100 delegates walked out of a national conference that was hailed as Iraq's first experiment with democracy after decades of dictatorship. Enraged over the fresh violence in Najaf, the delegates left the meeting hall declaring that, "as long as there are airstrikes and shelling, we can't have a conference." The day's events illustrated the dilemma that plagues Allawi and his American supporters.

It will be difficult, if not impossible, for Allawi to establish his leadership, hold Iraq together and prod the country toward democracy without crushing his militant opponents, not only in the Shiite south but also in the old Saddam Hussein strongholds north and west of the capital. But to do that, Allawi must rely on unpopular U.S. troops, whose offensives only lend support to the charge that Allawi is an American puppet. Sunday's showdown in Najaf was troubled even before the fighting resumed.

Several officials from the Iraqi defense ministry told Knight Ridder that more than 100 Iraqi national guardsmen and a battalion of Iraqi soldiers chose to quit rather than attack fellow Iraqis in a city that includes some of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam. Neither U.S. military officials nor Iraqi government officials would confirm the resignations. "We received a report that a whole battalion (in Najaf) threw down their rifles," said one high-ranking defense ministry official, who didn't want his name published because he's not an official spokesman. "We expected this, and we expect it again and again." "In Najaf, there are no Iraqi Army or police involved in the fighting. There were in the beginning, but later the American forces led the fighting," said Raad Kadhemi, a spokesman for al-Sadr. "Only the mercenaries and the bastards are supporting the Americans and helping them ... We salute our brothers who abandoned participating in the fight against the Mahdi Army."

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9409919.htm

[dArKeR]

5. Does this militiaman/Sadr pic look Reuters photoshopped to you?

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/photo/2004/08/16/2003146509

[T Bone]

7. yes

Looks like effects and enhancements at least.

:kick:

[0007]

8. Reuters is so full of propagada it's funny!

[bemildred]

6. This seems to have been artillery aimed into the cemetary, FWIW. nt