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Najaf Cemetery Becomes Killing Field    •

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  Truce Talks Collapse in Holy City of Najaf
  By Abdul Hussein Al-Obeidi
  The Associated Press

  Saturday 14 August 2004

  NAJAF, Iraq - Truce talks between Shiite militants and Iraqi officials broke down Saturday, raising the prospect of a return to the fierce fighting between militiamen and U.S-Iraqi forces that has shaken the holy city of Najaf for more than a week.

  The government's chief negotiator, Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie, said talks were making no progress and that he was leaving Najaf. Aides to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr blamed the United States and the Iraqi government on the breakdown.

  The negotiations had raised hopes for a resolution to the uprising by al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, which has posed deep security and political problems for Iraq's fledgling interim government. After nine days of heavy fighting, Najaf has been quiet since Friday, when U.S. forces halted a major offensive against the militiamen to give talks a chance.

  "I feel deep sorrow and regret to announce the failure of the efforts we have exerted to end the crisis in Iraq peacefully," said al-Rubaie, who serves in the government has national security adviser.

  "Our goal was to spare blood, preserve security and for the militias to put down their weapons," he said, without giving specifics on what led to the breakdown.

  Al-Sadr had 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 revered Imam Ali shrine and Najaf's old city, where they have taken refuge, aides said.

  However, al-Sadr himself did not participate in the talks and al-Rubaie said he felt some "elements" were hindering his efforts to hold a face-to-face meeting with the firebrand cleric.

  Al-Rubaie said he had proposed that al-Sadr's militia be disbanded and become a political movement.

  "We have been talking and discussing these matters for three days but reached no positive conclusion," he said. "After three days, my government thought there was no use in continuing."

  Al-Sadr aide Sheik Ali Smeisim said both sides had agreed on all points, but interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi suddenly told the government officials to break off talks and return to Baghdad.

  "It is a conspiracy to commit a big massacre," he told the pan-Arab Al-Jazeera television station.

  Ahmed al-Shaibany, another al-Sadr spokesman, blamed the talks' failure on the Americans, who also were not participating.

  "There are particular points and demands we had that we specifically wanted the Americans to sign on, but they refused," he said.

  Among those demands, he said, was U.S. compensation for the families of those killed in confrontations with the Americans.

  The U.S. military has estimated that hundreds of insurgents had been killed in the fierce fighting that broke out in Najaf on Aug. 5, but the militants dispute the figure. Six Americans have been killed, along with about 20 Iraqi officers, it said.

  The battles ended Friday as both sides respected a cease-fire during the negotiations to end the crisis.

  Aside from the security dangers of the uprising, the fighting in Najaf - one of the holiest cities in Shia Islam, 100 miles south of Baghdad - has posed a political threat to Allawi's government, which is seeking to show it has control in the country but cannot lash out too harshly against al-Sadr's movement. The violence has angered many of the country's majority Shiites, including those who do not normally support al-Sadr.

  About 10,000 demonstrators from as far away as Baghdad also arrived in Najaf on Saturday to show their solidarity with the militants and promising to act as human shields to protect the city.

  Intense clashes between al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia and Iraqi police in the city of Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, killed about 40 militants and three police, Capt. Hadi Hassan, a police spokesman, said Saturday.

  In other violence, U.S. warplanes bombed the largely Sunni city of Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, after insurgents attacked U.S. troops with a mortar barrage and clashes erupted.

  The military said about 50 militants were killed in the operation, but police Maj. Saadoun al-Dulaimi said 12 people were killed, including three policeman, and 36 were injured. The fighting in Samarra started Friday night when .

  The U.S. military also announced Saturday that one Marine and one U.S. soldier were killed in separate incidents in the volatile Anbar Province. As of Friday, 930 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq in March 2003, according to the Defense Department.

  Al-Sadr, who has a long history of sending contradictory signals, demanded in an interview with al-Jazeera Saturday the resignation of the interim government and said the violence had broken out because he wanted municipal services restored and he refused to participate in the key national conference beginning Sunday.

  "Had I agreed to participate with them and to not ask for the rights of the people, they wouldn't have done this to me and they wouldn't have targeted me in particular and targeted Shiism," he said. The interview appeared to have taken place before the talks broke down.

  The U.S. military said the fighting began when al-Sadr's militants began attacking a Najaf police station.

  Najaf Gov. Adnan al-Zurufi, meanwhile, said the government had no plans to arrest al-Sadr or force him to leave the city. "We have no orders to arrest him (al-Sadr)," he said. However, "all militias should be disbanded and leave the city."

  U.S. troops and Iraqi officials want to ensure that any new truce would eliminate the flaws of the previous agreements, including one that ended a two-month uprising in early June. The Mahdi Army militia repeatedly violated that cease-fire, shooting at police and burying caches of weapons in Najaf's vast cemetery and using the time to regroup, according to U.S. officials and witnesses.

  In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said he hoped al-Sadr would respond "in due course" to charges placed against him by Iraqi authorities. An Iraqi judge has issued an arrest warrant for al-Sadr in connection with the death of a moderate Shiite leader, Abdul Majid al-Khoi, in April 2003. Al-Sadr denies any role in the murder.

  Powell denounced al-Sadr and his militia as outlaws and said U.S. forces were "squeezing" Najaf in an effort to end the fighting, but reiterated that U.S. troops would not enter the holy shrine to push out the militants.

  "We do not in any way wish to get involved with the mosque," Powell said. "It's a very holy place for all Shia."

  In other developments Saturday:

  _ An explosion hit a pipeline near Haswa that links the country's southern oil fields to refineries in Baghdad, setting it on fire, police Lt. Hadi Obeid said. The source of the blast was unclear, though insurgents have routinely sabotaged Iraq's crucial oil industry.

  The U.S. military released 80 detainees from Abu Ghraib prison.

 

  

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  Najaf Cemetery Becomes Killing Field
  By Todd Pitman
  The Associated Press

  Friday 13 August 2004

  NAJAF, Iraq - The platoon leader's call came crackling over Charlie Company radios: "We're taking RPG fire, 800 meters! Small arms fire, 300 meters!"

  With night falling, the soldiers of the 1st Calvary Division were being attacked again by militants creeping tombstone by tombstone toward them in Najaf's sprawling cemetery, a killing field neither side has managed to secure in more than a week of sporadic fighting.

  "You have to give them credit," Sgt. 1st Class Mike Dewilde said after a brief firefight with insurgents Thursday in a cemetery zone the military has code-named the Bronx. "They do an amazing amount with what little they have."

  The men of the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment had been patrolling a dusty road that cuts into the graveyard's heart for eight hours to prevent militants loyal to firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr from moving north.

  They had discovered and blown up four bombs laid on rock-strewn paths. They'd been attacked by mortars that came close but hurt nobody.

  When pockets of al-Sadr fighter's got too close, they called in Apache helicopter gunships and pressed forward with only the faintest resistance, then pulled back.

  Mostly, it was quiet, and Charlie Company commander Capt. Patrick McFall spent a lot of time gazing over a computerized satellite map of the graveyard in his armored Humvee.

  Near dusk, however, the crackle of gunfire and explosions rang out again.

  Several Bradley fighting vehicles and half a dozen Humvees sped up to a deserted intersection on the cemetery's northeastern edge, scanning the tombstone-filled horizon with binoculars and gun turrets.

  Sgt. 1st Class Mike Dewilde, leader of the 3rd Platoon, told McFall eight men with rocket-propelled grenades and "multiple snipers" had been spotted in the graveyard and buildings rising behind it near the gold-domed Imam Ali shrine.

  U.S. commanders are under strict orders to avoid damaging the shrine for fear of enraging Iraq (news - web sites)'s Shiite majority and Shiites worldwide.

  For that reason, they maintain positions in the cemetery about 800 yards away.

  Sgt. Lyle Pete, 24, of Gardnerville, Nev., said he'd seen three men repeatedly firing from a building near the shrine. "They jump out and fire RPGs and jump back inside," he said.

  "This is the second time today we've taken RPG-fire from that location," said 30-year-old McFall of Harker Heights, Texas.

  With the crackle of light gunfire echoing through the graveyard, a mortar round thundered behind the men, then an RPG round exploded to their front. Smoke rose from the blasts.

  A small infantry unit of about 15 men scrambled forward looking for firing positions. Some lay in the middle of a small path leading south.

  A Bradley positioned in the road starting pumping thunderous rounds from its 25 mm cannon, and gunners perched on four machine-gun mounted Humvees began shooting.

  A three-man team led by Dewilde ran up the steps of a mausoleum whose square, walled-in concrete roof provided ideal cover. They laid rifles across the upper edge of the wall and began shooting.

  "Welcome to the Bronx," joked McFall.

  The military has divided the cemetery, one of the largest in the Muslim world, into zones named after New York City boroughs.

  Tense and sweating, two soldiers started to sing as they looked for targets.

  "One little, two little, three little Indians!"

  Dewilde cut them off. "Shut-up!"

  The two laid an M-240 Bravo machine-gun along the wall and began peeling off bursts of 7.62 mm ammunition. "Hold this!" the shooter yelled, as a second soldier fed in an ammunition belt. Spent shell casings spat into the air.

  After a few minutes, orders came to move ahead.

  Laden in heavy body armor and helmets, the infantrymen jogged behind their huge Bradley as it pushed further into the cemetery.

  Advancing slowly, they ducked behind tombs and poked flashlights mounted on their guns down crypts.

  There was no way to know where the militants were.

  "The problem is these guys can hide behind anything out here," said Spc. Joel Klootwyk of Knoxville, Iowa, poking a gun over a cemetery wall. "You gotta wait for them to shoot before you know where they're at."

  After a 10-minute walk, the three-man group burst into a white-walled mausoleum. The entryway was empty, the glass in its arched windows shattered.

  They ran cautiously up the steps and onto the rooftop, scanning the graveyard below. The lights of the Imam Ali shrine sparkled in the distance.

  There was no sign of their attackers.

  "The closer we get, the scarcer they get," said Dewilde, 37, of Gatesville, Texas. "When we move forward, they move back."

  Overwhelming American firepower is clearly the reason. But it hasn't stopped guerrillas from sneaking up as close to the troops as possible.

  When Dewilde ordered his men to head back toward the Bronx, they began poking flashlights into dark tombs again. Most had metal doors that led to small rooms.

  Dewilde said his platoon had been searching crypts for four days.

  "We've found cigarettes still burning, warm tea still in the cups," he said.

  They've also found rockets and ammunition left behind.

  As a quiet night set in, the U.S. troops climbed back onto rooftops, surveying the cemetery through the green glow of night-vision goggles.

  "You gotta give 'em credit," Dewilde said. "They got guts."

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