US forces tightened their grip around one of Iraq's holiest cities yesterday, and the rebel Shiite cleric they have vowed to kill or capture offered peace terms to spare Najaf a bloodbath.
An envoy appointed by Moqtada al-Sadr said the wanted cleric had asked him to convey peace proposals to the Americans.
The 2,500-strong Third Brigade Task Force, along with Spanish and Polish troops, set up what US officers called an exclusion zone around Najaf and sent out reconnaissance patrols from Forward Operating Base Duke, 20km west of the city.
PHOTO: EPA
The Najaf buildup was proceeding hours after US President George W. Bush vowed to stay the course in Iraq and said a June 30 handover to Iraqi sovereignty would go ahead.
"Sayyed Moqtada made positive proposals to end the crisis. I cannot disclose the details. He realizes that an armed confrontation is not in anybody's interest," Sadr's envoy, Abdelkarim al-Anzi, now in Baghdad, said by telephone.
Anzi said he had met Sadr in Najaf on Tuesday.
The US military has branded Sadr an outlaw and pledged to kill or capture the cleric, who has taken refuge near Najaf's Imam Ali shrine, sacred to the world's Shiite Muslims.
As tension mounted in Najaf, Iraqi mediators said they had extended a shaky truce in the embattled Sunni town of Fallujah for 48 hours from 9am yesterday.
But violence flared in Baghdad, where US soldiers fired on looters raiding a military truck previously ambushed on the airport road. A photographer said he saw several Iraqis lying motionless and bleeding after the shooting.
Four people were killed and six wounded in the northern city of Mosul when a Katyusha rocket, aimed at a police station, hit a civilian area, police and hospital officials said.
Tension was also running high in Najaf's sister city of Kerbala, where residents said streets were empty amid fears of clashes between Sadr's militia and US-led forces.
Bulgaria said its troops in the shrine city had come under fire during the night. They took no casualties in the attacks on a patrol and on their base, the Defence Ministry in Sofia said.
Bush said his generals, who have asked for two more brigades -- about 10,000 troops -- to be sent to Iraq, would get them.
The revolt, which took US officials by surprise, came as insurgents from the smaller Sunni Muslim community, to which former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein belongs, responded to a military crackdown in central Iraq by taking on US Marines in street battles.
Hundreds of Iraqis have been killed this monht, already the deadliest month for the US military since Saddam's fall a year ago, with 83 Americans killed in two weeks of combat.
US Marines fought Sunni insurgents in Fallujah overnight and witnesses said four civilians and two fighters were killed, but negotiators extended a truce for 48 hours.
Hospitals would be resupplied, amenities would be repaired and civilians who fled the fighting could return.
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
RSS