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.
MAKING WAVES: China’s maritime militia could become a nontraditional threat in war, clogging up shipping lanes to prevent US or Japanese intervention, a report said About 1,900 Chinese ships flying flags of convenience and fishing vessels that participated in China’s military exercises around Taiwan last month and in January have been listed for monitoring, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) Deputy Director-General Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽) said yesterday. Following amendments to the Commercial Port Act (商港法) and the Law of Ships (船舶法) last month, the CGA can designate possible berthing areas or deny ports of call for vessels suspected of loitering around areas where undersea cables can be accessed, Oceans Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. The list of suspected ships, originally 300, had risen to about 1,900 as
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
RSS