Iraq Chief Gives 'Final Warning' to Rebel Cleric

August 20, 2004
By JOHN F. BURNS
New York Times

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 19 - Prime Minister Ayad Allawi gave what he described as a final warning on Thursday to the rebel Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, saying the cleric should move quickly to fulfill his vow to disarm and leave the shrine in Najaf where his followers have been battling American troops for the last two weeks.

The warning was accompanied by a major intensification of American military attacks on targets in Najaf's Old City, around the Imam Ali shrine, with bombing strikes and an artillery barrage that lasted deep into Thursday night and lit the sky with bursts of flame and smoke.

An accompanying offensive in Mr. Sadr's other major stronghold, the Baghdad slum of Sadr City, saw American troops and armor pushing deep into the heart of the intensely populated district, scattering militiamen who have had a virtually uncontested run of the area for months.

With senior officials of the American-led military alliance saying the decision on whether to storm the Najaf shrine was one for Dr. Allawi, not for the United States, there were growing signs that Iraq's provisional government leader was ready to move beyond threats. Aides to Dr. Allawi said an assault led by Iraqi troops, backed by American troops and airpower, could come in days if Mr. Sadr backtracked, as he has before, on the pledge to disband his militia and vacate the shrine.

"This is the final call to them to disarm, vacate the holy shrine, and engage in political work," Dr. Allawi said at a news conference in Baghdad's heavily protected international zone, where the new government has its principal offices alongside buildings that are the seat of American military and political power. "We have left the doors open, and we hope he will abide by the rule of law."

Mr. Sadr, out of sight somewhere in Najaf, sent out conflicting signals. One aide, Sheik Ahmed al-Shaibani, told reporters in Najaf on Thursday that the terms set by a delegation of Iraqi clerics and politicians who visited the shrine on Tuesday - essentially those restated by Dr. Allawi to reporters today - had become untenable. "It's very clear that we reject them," he said.

But another cleric, Ali Smeisim, said Mr. Sadr was committed to fulfilling the delegation's terms. "By so doing, we have put the ball in Dr. Allawi's court," he said.

Later in the day, a report by Agence France-Presse from Najaf, quoting a new letter said to have been written by Mr. Sadr to his followers, quoted him as saying he would not disarm his militia force, known as the Mahdi Army.

"Everyone knows this army is the foundation of the Imam Mahdi, and I don't have the right to dissolve it," he said, referring to the 12th Shiite imam, a ninth century leader of the sect who Shiites believe will one day manifest himself on earth again as the mahdi, or messiah.

A Western official here said Iraqi officials were "trying to figure out" precisely what Mr. Sadr had committed himself to in an earlier letter read to a national political conference in Baghdad on Tuesday. The letter was taken by many of the delegates as an agreement to end the Najaf crisis by disarming, but Mr. Sadr's aides threw doubts on that immediately by stipulating that American and Iraqi forces would have to pull back from positions in Najaf's Old City before steps would be taken to meet Mr. Sadr's side of the deal.

A top Sadr aide issued a plea to the kidnappers of Micah Garen, the 36-year-old American journalist who was taken hostage last week in the southern city of Nasiriya.

The Associated Press quoted the aide, Sheik Aws al-Khafaji, as saying the Mahdi Army was against kidnapping, "especially this journalist who rendered Nasiriya great service." This appeared to be a reference to Mr. Garen's efforts over the last year to film the looting of archaeological sites near Nasiriya that are treasured for what they have revealed of the Sumerian civilization, going back as far as 5,000 years.

Mr. Khafaji's remarks aligned with the position taken recently by Mr. Sadr, who condemned the spate of kidnappings of foreigners across Iraq, some of which have ended in beheadings, calling them un-Islamic. Last weekend, clerics loyal to Mr. Sadr intervened to free a British journalist, who had been kidnapped from a hotel in the southern city of Basra, and appeared with the reporter at a news conference, claiming credit for his release. The American military's attempt to increase pressure on Mr. Sadr appeared to be focused on bombing and shelling rebel strongholds within a few hundred yards of the Sadr stronghold in the Imam Ali Mosque, the holiest Shiite shrine in Iraq. An AC-130 gunship pounded rebel positions from above, while tanks and armored vehicles fired in the streets.

Before the attacks on Thursday night, American troops and Sadr militiamen had traded volleys of gunfire in the Old City, and three mortars apparently fired by the rebels struck a police station, killing seven police officers and wounding at least two dozen others.

The wounded police officers were treated at Najaf's central hospital before being transported to the American base on the city's northern outskirts for further treatment. Some were then flown aboard American medevac helicopters to a military hospital in Baghdad.

Capt. Warren Haggray, a chaplain at the Marine base in Najaf, said he had prayed alongside the father of a teenage officer named Muhammad whose skull was riddled with shrapnel. "For someone to shoot at a building and injure a 19-year-old in that way, God is not in that," he said.

The attacks in Najaf were accompanied by bombing raids in the Sunni stronghold of Falluja and the boldest American offensive in months in Sadr City, where Mr. Sadr's appeals to poor Shiites, and his recurrent insurrections against the Americans, have given him a formidable base.

By late afternoon, clusters of tanks from the First Cavalry Division were in control of an area about two miles into the Baghdad slum, with Apache helicopter gunships skimming rooftops in support. Mr. Sadr's fighters were nowhere to be seen, having abandoned streets that had been their domain for weeks and melted back into the maze of refuse-strewn back streets and alleyways.

"We've never moved in and stayed like this before," said Capt. John Meredith, a tank company commander, according to a pool report filed by an American journalist embedded with the cavalry division. "As far as they'll really stop fighting, we'll see.''

An intelligence officer accompanying the thrust was similarly wary. "They'll probably figure they'll hole up and live to fight another day," said Capt. Randall McCauley.

At briefings in Baghdad, a Western official familiar with the thinking of the top American officials in Iraq, Ambassador John D. Negroponte and Gen. George W. Casey, said the decision on how to proceed in Najaf rested with Dr. Allawi and his government, which took office seven weeks ago as the United States returned formal sovereignty to Iraq.

"I think it would be accurate to say that it's not an American dilemma," one official said. "It's a challenge to the Iraqi government."

The official added that when the Allawi government had reached a decision, "they'll be communicating" it to what is now known as the Multinational Force, the American-led alliance that underpins the provisional government with 160,000 troops.

But the simultaneous ratcheting up of attacks by American troops in Najaf and Sadr City, Mr. Sadr's principal strongholds, suggested that American commanders already had the government's clearance to strike hard, in the hope of pushing Mr. Sadr into what, in military terms, would be tantamount to a surrender.

Iraq's defense minister, Hazim al-Shalaan, confirmed that the military operations were planned as a preliminary to tougher actions later. Appearing at the news conference with Dr. Allawi, he characterized Thursday's operations in Najaf as a "cleaning the streets" of Mr. Sadr's militia and said Iraqi forces were poised for a much broader attack.

He offered no details on how the government intended to force Mr. Sadr's followers from the mosque, saying it was prepared to give Mr. Sadr "more time to think."

The Western official who spoke to reporters in Baghdad said those involved knew that attacking Sadr militiamen in the mosque, with troops and armor that would have to approach down "densely populated, narrow streets" and then find ways to clear the mosque without damaging it, "is not going to be an easy military enterprise." Dr. Allawi, the official said, would probably delay for further negotiations.

"Over the next couple of days, I'd anticipate that you'd see emissaries running back and forth," he said.

But ultimately, he said, Mr. Sadr "risks having the iron fist come down on him" if he prevaricates.

He added: "I think the Iraqi people are tired of bloodshed, and there's no doubt that they'd rather not have people storming into the mosque. At the same time, they are tired of all this insecurity, so there is a sense that this cannot continue the way it is. At some point, the Allawi government will say, 'We've done all we can; this far and no further.' "