Sadr bids a farewell to arms but fighting on streets of Najaf tells a diff

[mom cat]

Sadr bids a farewell to arms but fighting on streets of Najaf tells a different story
By Donald Macintyre in Najaf
19 August 2004


Fighting continued in Najaf late last night despite an earlier declaration that the Shia leader Muqtada Sadr had accepted a peace plan designed to end the two-week battle for control of the city.

In an unexpected development, Sadr sent a letter to a delegate attending the national conference of politicians in Baghdad saying that he was accepting peace terms laid down the previous day by a mission from the conference.

But amid serious doubts over whether his conditions for implementing the plan ­ reportedly including a demand that US troops should withdraw ­ would satisfy the interim Iraqi government, explosions continued around the old city. Police imposed a curfew for the first time. Shelling and automatic gunfire had earlier been clearly audible from points close to the old city after reports spread of the putative truce and at least one mortar was fired in the direction of a main police station.

Earlier, yesterday the armed insurgents occupying the mosque in Najaf, which contains the sacred Imam Ali shrine, were given "the next few hours" to lay down their arms or face a major assault that would "teach them a lesson they will never forget".

Rumours of a breakthrough began circulating among Iraqi delegates to the conference choosing a national assembly in Baghdad. The meeting was then read a letter from Sadr. It said he had agreed to the demands laid down in a peace plan taken to Najaf by a delegation from the conference which the cleric had refused to meet on Tuesday. The plan calls on Sadr to leave the mosque, disarm his militia and transform his Mehdi Army into a political party in exchange for amnesty.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=552887

[Ghetto_Boy]

1. Is this the FINAL final farewell?? I lost count

[REVOLT823]

2. I really wish the press would do a better job

of getting the facts straight. I get the impression that they had extended some feelers but Sadr had some conditions of his own. I don't think anything had been resolved. Everytime this guy starts to agree to something it seems like the media automatically declares the guy is going to throw his guns away and rush lovingly into Allawi's arms. He is not stupid, he is not going to stand his militia down because he would probably be immediately killed or arrested once he wasn't protected.

[bemildred]

3. Their job is to feed us the current propaganda.

It has gotten a bit comical the last few days, as it did
during the Faloojah crisis.

It appears to me that al Sadr's position has been consistent
throughout, what has been changing day to day is the response of
the various parties on the other side, and the propaganda spin
we are being fed about it.

Al Sadr has his own counter propaganda going too, aimed at his
compatriots, but you have to go down to the bottom of the stories
to get any of it. Al Jazeera is helpful too.

[jayfish]

4. This Seems Worse.

For the past week the story seems to change on a minute by minute basis. I wonder if this is part of that Donnie Rumsfeld disinformation project.

Jay

[bemildred]

5. Nah.

I think their tit is just more tightly wrapped around a
wringer this time. They are fucked no matter what they do,
hence the dithering back and forth and the extended bouts
of blather and posturing to buy time. In Faloojah a few
months back the dilemma was not so well delineated.