Word: sadr
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...eight days, the warnings of a decisive military showdown echoed across Najaf as fighting raged between U.S. forces and Shi'ite militiamen for control of the holy city. The Shi'ites' truculent leader, cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, vowed not to leave his bunker in the sect's sacred Imam Ali shrine "until the last drop of my blood has been spilled." The U.S. Marine colonel commanding American and Iraqi-government troops battling the stubborn gunmen of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army proclaimed his men were ready "to finish this fight that the Muqtada militia started." Iyad Allawi, the Prime Minister...
...then on the ninth day, everyone drew back. A delegation of Iraqi leaders led by Allawi's National Security Adviser, Muwaffak al-Rubaie, arrived from Baghdad to open talks with al-Sadr aides. U.S. troops suspended their offensive against the Mahdi Army, while the fighters who had battled the Americans hand to hand melted back into the sanctuary of the shrine...
...when al-Rubaie sat down with al-Sadr's representatives, one of them coolly demanded, "Is this cease-fire because you are strong or weak?" Al-Sadr's men evidently thought they knew the answer as they presented him with a list of demands, starting with a complete withdrawal of coalition forces from Najaf and setting terms that would effectively leave Najaf's security in the hands of Shi'ite forces under clerical control. Iraqi officials insisted the militia had to be disbanded but offered to let the movement join the political process. Al-Sadr did not even bother...
...legitimacy or law and order amid the chaos of post-Saddam Iraq. Allawi had set himself up as a tough guy ready to impose draconian measures to quell the country's relentless violence. Yet taking the fight all the way to the golden-domed Imam Ali shrine, where al-Sadr's men were dug in, could spark uncontrollable rage among the country's majority Shi'ite population. Unrest had quickly spread across the Shi'ite south and into Baghdad's teeming Sadr City slums. Washington sensed that a critical turning point had been reached: a widening conflagration would not only...
MIDDLE EAST IRAQ: The government, the U.S. and Moqtada al-Sadr have much at stake in the battle for Najaf...