resta alta la tensione a Najaf dove 2500 soldati USA hanno l'ordine di uccidere o catturare Al Sadr

["nello margiotta" <nellomargiotta55@virgilio.it>]

fonte: Al Jazeera

Najaf tense as US threaten al-Sadr


Sunday 18 April 2004, 13:25 Makka Time, 10:25 GMT
Tension remained high in Najaf, where 2500 US troops are poised nearby with
orders to kill or capture Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr.
A spokesman for al-Sadr said on Saturday that negotiations were at a dead
end. A US spokesman denied any direct talks had taken place, although he
said Iraq's US-led administration was keen to avoid bloodshed in Najaf.
Caught in the face-off between US troops and al-Sadr's Mahdi army militia,
Najaf residents complained their lives and livelihoods were at risk with
shops closed and streets around the city's shrines crowded with gunmen
instead of pilgrims.
Al-Sadr's supporters say Iraq's top Shia clerics back the uprising they
staged this month against the US-led occupiers.
"We know that any assault from the Americans on the holy city of Najaf will
be the zero hour for the revolution all over Iraq," said al-Sadr's
spokesman, Qays al-Khazali. "The religious authority has a clear stand in
providing us with moral support."
Criticism
But representatives of Najaf's four grand Ayat Allahs have distanced
themselves from the cleric's actions.
"Muqtada did not consult the religious authority when he started this crisis
or when he created the Mahdi army," said a spokesman for Grand Ayat Allah
Ishaq al-Fayadh.
US officials say al-Sadr, wanted in connection with the murder of another
Shia cleric a year ago, must face justice in an Iraqi court and disarm his
"ragtag militia".

Much of the Mahdi army is made up of young unemployed men from Baghdad's
slums or the deprived regions of southern Iraq. Many Najaf residents regard
their presence with alarm.
Some Shia fear that unless a peaceful solution can be found, al-Sadr's
uprising will lead not just to more fighting with occupying troops but also
to internecine Shia conflict.
"If things are not solved peacefully it could lead to an internal
explosion," said Adnan al-Asaadi, a senior figure in the Shia Dawa party