Thousands of Shiite pilgrims streamed into the Imam Ali Shrine yesterday and filed out, mixed with militants who had been holed up inside for weeks, after Iraq's top Shiite cleric brokered a peace deal to end three weeks of fighting in this holy city.
By yesterday afternoon, the shrine, where the fighting had been centered, appeared empty, clear of the visitors and the militants. US forces, however, still maintained their positions around the holy site and jet fighters flew overhead.
PHOTO: AP
Dozens of Iraqi police and national guardsmen deployed around the shrine compound yesterday afternoon -- but did not enter. Some kissed the doors leading to the compound, others burst into tears. Some residents of the devastated neighborhood waved to them and yelled out, "Welcome. Welcome."
Hours earlier, firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr issued a statement broadcast over the shrine's loudspeakers, ordering his fighters to lay down their arms and leave Najaf and neighboring Kufa.
"To all my brothers in Mahdi Army ... you should leave Kufa and Najaf without your weapons, along with the peaceful masses," his statement said.
Dozens of militants piled Kalashnikov rifles in front of al-Sadr's office. Thousands of al-Sadr's militiamen were still believed to be armed in the city, however.
Al-Sadr accepted the peace proposal in a face-to-face meeting Thursday night with the 75-year-old Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani. Iraq's interim government also agreed to the deal and US forces ordered their troops to cease fire.
Early yesterday, thousands of people marched through Najaf to visit the shrine, one of Shiite's holiest. Many kissed its doors as they entered, chanting "Thanks to God!"
Militants were seen walking out, chanting "Muqtada, Muqtada."
Police later blocked roads leading to the area, preventing people from entering and searching throngs of people as they streamed back out of the shrine. Most of those leaving carried no weapons, but police detained four militants carrying grenades.
Al-Sistani's highly publicized, 11th-hour peace mission would almost certainly boost his already high prestige in Iraq and cloak him in a statesman's mantle, showing that only he had the ability to force an accord between two sides that loathe each other.
The Health Ministry said 110 people were killed and 501 were wounded in Najaf and Kufa on Thursday. Twenty-seven of the dead were killed when mortars slammed into Kufa's main mosque, where thousands had gathered to march into Najaf in support of al-Sistani's mission.
Meanwhile, an Arab-language television station said yesterday that it received a video showing the killing of kidnapped Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni, whom militants had threatened to execute if Italy did not withdraw troops from Iraq. Al-Jazeera said the video was too graphic to broadcast but that it appeared to show Baldoni being slain.
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