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"Najaf fighters issued another ultimatum"

Posted by Habibi (Guest) - Tuesday, August 24 2004, 18:50:30 (CEST) from - Windows XP - Internet Explorer Website: Website title:

I hear that with every inch the U.S. military creeps up on the shrine, more and more civilians, esp. children, are getting injured or killed. It's so obvious that the U.S. military is in the wrong here.... Furthermore, those MDs at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere who were found to violate the rights of their prisoner patients (whether those patients were dead or alive at the time of the violations shouldn't matter) should NOT be allowed to practice medicine anymore. Their licenses should be taken away from them, permanently. --------------------------------------- Najaf fighters issued another ultimatum Tuesday 24 August 2004, 17:43 Makka Time, 14:43 GMT Al-Mahdi Army fighters have been given just hours to give up Iraq's interim defence minister has warned fighters besieged in Najaf's Imam Ali shrine to surrender or face an attack later on Tuesday that would "wipe them out". The ultimatum was the latest in a series of threats by the US-backed government to the al-Mahdi Army loyal to Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr, which has been fighting American marines around the Imam Ali mosque for three weeks. "We are in the last hours. This evening, Iraqi forces will reach the doors of the shrine and control it and appeal to the al-Mahdi Army to throw down their weapons," Defence Minister Hazim al-Shaalan told a news conference at a US military base outside Najaf. "If they do not, we will wipe them out." A spokesman for al-Sadr's office in Baghdad, Raid al-Kadhimy, said: "This is the beginning of the battle." To the death "They [US forces] will not enter Najaf until we are all dead," al-Kadhimy told Aljazeera. He also said "those collaborators with the US forces will be sooner or later heavily punished by the Iraqi people and al-Sadr's movement". "The whole world has witnessed al-Sadr welcoming any peaceful initiative," al-Kadhimy continued. "But those crooked members of the government, who are collaborating with the US occupation forces, do not want any peace. They are slaves for the occupation forces. Welcome peace "However, we still welcome any peaceful initiative," al-Kadhimy added. He stressed that al-Sadr was willing to hand over the shrine's keys to Ayat Allah al-Sistani and evacuate al-Haidari compound. "But those [government members] are manipulating us... They are not cooperating with us to hand over the keys, which is considered the beginning of a peaceful solution for our crisis. "Even Saddam Hussein has not dared to attack the holy shrines," al-Kadhimy added. Escalation Meanwhile, US tanks on Tuesday reinforced their positions along the southern flank of the shrine. Witnesses near the shrine said they saw Iraqi forces for the first time in the battle zone, after a morning of intense gunfire following fierce attacks by US warplanes overnight. "I saw at least 10 American tanks parked on Medina street. It was impossible to get through today because snipers were everywhere," said one Iraqi witness, Fadil Shakir. Medina street is a strategic thoroughfare with snipers on both sides. It is about 500 metres from the shrine. A witness reported seeing Iraqi National Guard troops in two white pickup trucks appear for the first time in the battle zone. Witnesses said they saw many of them as well as some policemen around Medina street. Militiamen accused The US military said a rocket fired by militiamen clipped the wall of the Imam Ali shrine on Tuesday and may have damaged the building. In a statement, the military said US aircraft spotted militiamen firing the rocket from the northeast corner of Iraq's holiest Shia shrine. "The rocket clipped the wall of the shrine and landed approximately 10 metres north of the wall. The shrine may have sustained damage due to the rocket," it said. Each side in the Najaf fighting has accused the other of mounting attacks near the shrine and of failing to respect holy ground. Aljazeera + Agencies --------------------- - BACK TO INDEX - REPLY - QUOTE - EDIT - DELETE -

The full topic: "Najaf fighters issued another ultimatum" Habibi - Tuesday, August 24 2004, 18:50:30 (CEST) Re: "Najaf fighters issued another ultimatum" parhad - 08/24 22:14

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