Iraq Cleric Vows Fight to Death Vs. U.S.

MrBishop

MrBishop

Well-Known Member
By ABDUL HUSSEIN AL-OBEIDI, Associated Press Writer

NAJAF, Iraq - A radical cleric whose loyalists battled U.S. troops for the fifth straight day vowed Monday to fight to the death, and a suicide attacker detonated a car bomb northeast of the capital, killing six people and wounding the deputy governor who was the intended target, officials said.


Explosions and gunfire were heard throughout Najaf and U.S. helicopters hovered overhead as U.S. forces tried to drive Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militiamen from a vast cemetery they have repeatedly used as a base. A U.S. tank rolled within 400 yards of Najaf's holiest site, the Imam Ali Shrine, also held by militiamen.


A Najaf hospital spokesman said three were killed, including two policemen, and 19 wounded. The U.S. military says hundreds of militants have been killed in the violence in recent days; the militiamen put the number far lower.


Al-Sadr vowed to keep up the battle.


"I will continue fighting," al-Sadr told reporters. "I will remain in Najaf city until the last drop of my blood has been spilled."
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He may just get his wish. Comments?
 
I was just coming to post this.

My response to al sadrs challenge of fighting to the death....OK. Next.
 
This is the same cleric who agreed to a truce only last month. I'm not as surprised as the press is by this, though. I'm just waiting to see how long the moderate Shi'ites are going to put up with his troops running into mosques whenever they desire to be safe from retaliation. They have already caused damage to several mosques already... :shrug:
 
A signal that we're done playing with him like a cat plays with a mouse before dinner?

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. Marines said Wednesday they were preparing a final assault on Iraqi Shi'ite militia in the holy city of Najaf, after a radical cleric urged his men to keep fighting even if he was killed.

The warning came as sporadic clashes between U.S. troops and militia loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr echoed from the heart of Najaf, where hundreds have been killed or wounded in the past week around some of Iraq's holiest Shi'ite Muslim sites.

"Iraqi and U.S. forces are making final preparations as we get ready to finish this fight that the Moqtada militia started," Col. Anthony Haslam, commanding officer of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Najaf, said in a statement.

Haslam gave few details, but his threats and Sadr's defiance have raised the stakes in a battle that is the toughest test yet for the 6-week-old government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
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Reuters
 
Gonz said:
A signal that we're done playing with him like a cat plays with a mouse before dinner?



Reuters
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Looks like you beat me to the punch this time, Gonz. :p I was going to deal with the whole gayt-marraige thread and then post pretty much the same link.

Wonder how many of his fight to the death warriors will hide in the Mosques this time?
 
Another delay?

NAJAF, Iraq - U.S. troops prepared a major offensive to root out Shiite militiamen in the holy city of Najaf, training Iraqi security forces Wednesday to join the assault. In a sign of the operation's sensitivity, the military said Iraq (news - web sites)'s prime minister must approve.

Source
 
MrBishop said:
Another delay?

NAJAF, Iraq - U.S. troops prepared a major offensive to root out Shiite militiamen in the holy city of Najaf, training Iraqi security forces Wednesday to join the assault. In a sign of the operation's sensitivity, the military said Iraq (news - web sites)'s prime minister must approve.

Source
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The Iraqi PM gave his permission before the last offensive. We're asking again for clarification. It wouldn't do us any good to take this guy out, and then get blamed for destroying the mosque he's hiding in in the process...

Damned lawyers war...
 
It was impossible to confirm whether al-Sadr was in fact wounded. Al-Jazeera TV quoted the cleric's aide, Ahmed al-Shaibany, as saying that al-Sadr was wounded in three places during the clashes, but he didn't say what happened or if the wounds were serious.
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FoxNews
 
It's a dificult situation. The guy needs taking out, that I'll agree with, it's just that how does one go about taking out a muslim cleric who claims descent from the Prophet in a Mosque without making him a holy martyr?

G
 
Gotnolegs said:
It's a dificult situation. The guy needs taking out, that I'll agree with, it's just that how does one go about taking out a muslim cleric who claims descent from the Prophet in a Mosque without making him a holy martyr?

G
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If he doesn't die...he's not a Martyr. Then again..if they can't find enough of him to identify him...he may not be dead and can't be a martyr then either :)
 
NAJAF, Iraq (AP) - Iraqi officials and aides to a radical Shiite cleric negotiated Friday to end fighting that has raged in Najaf for nine days, after American forces suspended an offensive against Muqtada al-Sadr's militia. Al-Sadr's aides said he was wounded by shrapnel, but Iraqi officials said the cleric was involved in the talks.
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Evidently, that's close enough to death for him.
 
His clerics have decided to sacrifice him for the cause. However, the police are doing what needed to be done quite some time ago

The Iraqi authorities ordered foreign journalists to leave Najaf yesterday, threatening to arrest or even shoot reporters as US marines and Iraqi government forces resumed the fight against Shia militants.

Iraqi police told the journalists to leave because of a supposed threat by insurgents to bomb their hotel. The intimidation - including shots apparently fired by police at the hotel - came as Iyad Allawi, the interim prime minister, hailed the birth of democracy in Iraq at the opening of a national conference in Baghdad.
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Telegraph

A reporters job is to tell the viewer/listener/reader the facts. They do not have to be witnessed first hand.
 
The attempt to impose a news blackout in Najaf will reinforce the suspicions that a politically risky assault to storm the shrine will soon be under way.

Damage to the shrine or the entry of US troops into the compound could provoke a Shia backlash and increase support for Sadr.
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In the absents of third party observers ,Sadr himself could blow up the shrine and it would be the USs word against a Shiite Cleric ,whom are the Shiite majority going to believe ?
 
freako104 said:
that might still martyr him though.
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Not if he starts pissing off more people like he is now.

This is not right. We demand Muqtada al-Sadr withdraw from the holy shrine because it's not the specific property of one person," Hussein al-Sadr, a distant cousin to the cleric, told the conference. "It belongs to everybody. Shrines should not be controlled by one man, regardless of his status."
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Source
 
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