‘Military Clearing’ in Najaf to Resume

Fighting was poised to flare anew here after talks between militant cleric Muqtada Sadr and the Iraqi government collapsed Saturday, raising fears of a climactic showdown in one of Shiite Islam’s holiest cities.

Mouwafak Rabii, national security advisor to interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, said that negotiations for a peaceful resolution to the conflict had broken down and that a temporary cease-fire declared a day earlier between Sadr’s militia on one side and U.S. and Iraqi forces on the other no longer applied.

“It is with deep sorrow and regret that I announce the failure of efforts to end the crisis in Iraq peacefully,” Rabii told reporters here, adding that “military clearing operations” would resume “to establish law and order [in] this holy city.”

It was unclear, however, when any major strike against Sadr’s followers would begin. Before the truce took effect, U.S. and Iraqi forces on Thursday encircled the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf’s Old City, where Sadr and as many as 1,000 members of his Al Mahdi militia are believed to be holed up.

Any attempt to rout Sadr probably would be conducted by Iraqi forces, rather than by the Americans, to lessen the political fallout of moving on one of Shiite Islam’s holiest sites.

“We are going to now assume a more background and supportive role and let Iraqi security forces take primary responsibility,” Maj. Doug Ollivant of the Army’s 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, said this morning.

Added Maj. David Holahan, executive officer of the 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment: “Allawi has decided there has to be an Iraqi solution to the problem.”

A unit of Iraqi security troops that has been training with U.S. Special Forces is in Najaf and has been tasked with several sensitive operations already, including raiding a mosque in nearby Kufa last week.

A few hours after the truce talks fell apart Saturday, the U.S. began mobilizing to resume the intense combat that has raged nearly nonstop in Najaf since Aug. 5. Hundreds of troops lined up in tanks and other armored vehicles at a base on the northern edge of the city.

But just as the convoy was ready to roll, officers ordered the engines cut and the troops to return. Military officials said they were following the cues of the Iraqi government.

“We were ready to help them if they directed us to.... We developed a plan in case one was requested, but we were not directed to execute the plan,” Holahan said.

As Iraqi officials plotted strategy, one of Sadr’s aides warned that “a massacre” was just hours away, and the air was filled with tense anticipation.

The failure to reach an agreement casts a pall over a three-day conference due to begin today in Baghdad to help pick a 100-member national assembly with limited powers. The government touts the conference as a key step on the road to elections in January, but some groups, including Sadr’s militants, are boycotting the gathering, which they label a U.S. creation.

Each side blames the other for the failure of the Najaf talks, which had offered a slight hope for a negotiated end to a confrontation that has already left hundreds dead here and in other Iraqi cities where pro-Sadr militants have risen up in solidarity.

There were conflicting accounts, even within the Sadr camp, as to what caused the dialogue to halt so abruptly. Sadr spokesman Qais Khazali said the cleric had agreed to almost all of the government’s demands before Rabii, Allawi’s chief negotiator, suddenly pulled out of the talks. Khazali accused the government of never really intending to negotiate in good faith.

Another Sadr aide blamed the U.S. -- which Iraqi officials said was not involved in the talks -- for refusing to compensate the families of slain Al Mahdi members, Associated Press reported.

But Rabii said dialogue foundered after Sadr refused to meet with him face to face, despite repeated promises. The government also insists that Sadr’s militia vacate the Imam Ali Mosque and lay down its arms -- something that the fighters have not shown themselves willing to do, U.S. and Iraqi officials say.

“The Iraqi interim government has exhausted all efforts and did not leave any stone unturned to reach ... a peaceful conclusion to this crisis,” Rabii said. After three days of fruitless negotiation, Allawi had had enough, the negotiator said.

As the prospect of renewed combat arose, attention refocused on Najaf’s ancient gold-domed Imam Ali Mosque, which the militants have used as a launching pad for attacks and a shield against return fire. Iraqi and U.S. officials have so far refrained from mounting any offensive against the shrine for fear of damaging it and igniting the anger of Shiites worldwide.

Allawi has expressed his determination to stamp out the rebellion by Sadr and his followers, who have openly challenged his fledgling government’s legitimacy and cast themselves -- with increasing success -- as the true defenders of Iraq’s sovereignty from U.S. control. The tough-talking Allawi has staked his reputation on proving himself a leader capable of crushing Iraq’s bloody Sunni and Shiite Muslim insurgencies and restoring order to a lawless land.

But Sadr, a junior cleric who has gained power on the strength of his illustrious family name and a fiery appeal to poor, dispossessed young Shiites, has proved a wily opponent. The cleric has kept the Iraqi government off-balance by mixing appeals for peace talks with rousing calls to his followers to keep on fighting.

“I will not leave this holy city,” Sadr told supporters in the mosque Friday, even as talks were ongoing. “We will remain here defending the holy shrines till victory or martyrdom.”

The standoff raises the specter of a revival of clashes between his militia and U.S. and Iraqi forces in other cities. Even while the truce was in effect in Najaf on Saturday, pro-Sadr militants squared off with Iraqi police in Hillah, south of Baghdad, in intense fighting that has left 40 people dead since Friday.

Faced with the prospect of a major insurrection, Allawi ordered the cease-fire Friday to give talks a chance, despite his previous avowals not to negotiate.

U.S. military officials chafed at the suspension of combat, worried that Sadr’s forces would use the interlude to bring in reinforcements.

Thousands of people poured into this city from other parts of Iraq on Saturday to demonstrate their support of the cleric.

“We are going to Najaf to save our brothers there and will not come back unless there is a peaceful solution,” said Hadi Mohammed Atwan, 32, as he joined a caravan of people and supplies that set out for Najaf from the southern Shiite-dominated city of Basra.

Elsewhere, in the northern city of Samarra, a hotbed of Sunni Muslim insurgents, U.S. fighter planes dropped 500-pound bombs on buildings in which guerrillas were believed to be hiding.

The U.S. said 50 militants died. Iraq’s Health Ministry reported the deaths of three civilians.

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Chu reported from Baghdad and Sanders from Najaf. Special correspondent Othman Ghanim in Basra contributed to this report.