Word: najaf
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...month-long standoff with Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi militia, however, has thus far defied all efforts at a mediated solution. Fierce clashes provoked by Sadrist fire this week drew the Americans ever closer to fighting outside the sacred shrines in Najaf and Karbala. Sadr appears to be riding on the U.S. campaign against him as a means to eclipse his rivals in the battle for Shiite support. His tactics appear to involve goading the U.S. into increasingly risky actions around the holy sites, and then publicly lambasting Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani for failing to act on his warning...
...post-occupation Iraq is taking shape. With less than seven weeks to go before the June 30th handoff, its becoming clear that at least some of the insurgents will have a significant role in the new Iraq. First at Fallujah, and now at negotiations with followers Moqtada Sadr in Najaf, U.S. officials appear to have recognized that it may be difficult to prevail militarily against the insurgents without inflicting casualties and damage that would turn the civilian population even more decisively against the occupation...
...insurgents as an incentive to get them to stop fighting, that doesn't appear to be stopping the military from considering a similar plan to co-opt Sadrists into security forces for the Shiite cities. Brig. Gen. Martin Dempsey of the 1st Armored Division has proposed creating a Najaf Brigade to police the city, which would initially comprise 1,800 men drawn from militias loyal to local tribal chiefs and to the various Shiite political parties, and could include members of Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi militia. Dempsey proposed similar arrangements for recruiting some of Sadr's men in five other...
...While the Fallujah deal is holding, there is no specific agreement at Najaf. Sadr appears to be holding out despite mounting pressure from within the Shiite clerical establishment for him to avoid a military confrontation in any of the shrine cities, and Paul Bremer appears to be insisting that Sadr be arrested before June 30 to face charges over the murder of a rival cleric a year ago. Local Shiite leaders had been working on a deal in which Sadr would agree to disband his militia in exchange for an understanding that he would be held only after the transfer...
...factions. Chief among them is the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, whose leaders sit on the IGC but whose 10,000-man Badr Brigade militia was trained by Iran's Revolutionary Guard. SCIRI has begun to challenge Sadr's men for control of the streets of Najaf. The mounting tension among rival Shiite elements there may have the look of a potential civil war, but it might just as easily be the opening salvoes of an election campaign in which Sadr and SCIRI, among others, hope to be competing for the same Shiite votes...