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Iraq : Contradictory claims over Najaf |
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There have been claims and counter-claims over whether the radical Shia cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army have left the Shia holy shrine of Imam Ali or not. Following a letter which Muqtada al-Sadr wrote to the chairman of the Political Conference called to elect an interim National Assembly in Baghdad saying he was ready to withdraw from the shrine, the Iraqi Interior Minister claimed on Aug 20 that al-Sadr and many of his militia members had left the shrine and that the shrine was in control of the Iraqi police which had taken prisoner some four hundred followers of Muqtada al-Sadr. However, this claim was soon contradicted by spokesman of al-Sadr who said there is no question of their handing over the control of the holy mosque to the forces of the interim Government which they consider illegal and puppet of the United States. If they have to give up control at all, they would hand over its keys to the representatives of the Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani who, meanwhile, is admitted to a hospital in London following a heart ailment.
The United States forces have meanwhile laid a siege around the mosque and subjected the area controlled by the Mehdi army to a series of air attacks to prompt al-Sadr to quit the mosque. Many were killed or injured. Al-Sadr himself earlier was injured when he was hit by a flying shrapnel.
The Government has offered that in case al-Sadr and his forces give up arms and abandon defiance, they could be given amnesty with the right to convert his Mehdi army into a political party. At first, al-Sadr spurned the offer and refused to meet an eight-member delegation of the Political Conference who flew in from Baghdad. They could only meet his aides. Later, he sent a letter to the Conference in which he agreed to accept their demands to resolve the crisis. The letter from his Office said he would agree to their terms which they had delivered to his aides during a visit to Najaf on Aug 17. The peace plan envisaged that he would disarm the Mehdi militia, remove them from the holy shrine where they are holding out. This would be in exchange for amnesty and his Mehdi army will be allowed to convert into a political party. The cleric agreed to the plan but wanted the delegation to return to Najaf to negotiate how it would be implemented.
As the stand-off continued even after the reported acceptance of the peace plan by al-Sadr but no sign of its implementation, the Interim Minister of State, Kasim Daud issued a final ultimatum on Aug 19 warning him that he would face a military action if he did not vacate the Imam Ali shrine. The American tanks edged to within 500 metres of Najaf’s Imam Ali shrine. The US aircraft also unleashed one of its most terrifying aircraft, AC-130 gunship in a bid to break their will to fight. The US forces which were, however, wary of launching an attack on the shrine which could lead to a countrywide Shia uprising against America, had trained special Iraqi forces to storm the shrine.
In Baghdad itself, the Iraqi religious and political delegates began a conference on August 15 in the midst of deteriorating security situation in Najaf, to constitute an interim National Assembly that will lead the country to free elections next year. Insurgents fired mortars at the meeting where the Iraqi leaders met to pick up the interim body. Around 1500 delegates from the religious groups and big and small political parties chose an 81-member National Assembly from a list of candidates backed by the Government. The selection of the Assembly which will oversee the government and pave the way for elections in January, marked the end of four days of often heated debate among the delegates.
The interim legislative body, the National Assembly, is supposed to oversee the functioning of the Interim Government until elections are held early next year. However, political observers point out that these supposedly sovereign institutions are so powerless that they function behind a protective cordon provided by the forces in illegal occupation of the country even as resistance groups hold sway over most of the population and large swathes of territory. Shia insurgent groups apparently control a huge slum in Baghdad as well as the inner neighbourhoods of most southern cities while the Sunni triangle to the north and west of the capital has become a no-go area for outside forces. The most active resistance groups refused to participate in the Baghdad conference and the insecure conditions apparently deterred several other prospective delegates from risking the journey. Under these circumstances the conference was nothing more than a farcical exercise to set up a supposedly independent body that will rubberstamp the decisions of the interim Government This make-believe effort at democratization might be lauded by the foreign sponsors of the current Iraqi set-up. However, even the interim Prime Minister, Ayad Allawi, did not apparently believe that the conference would serve any real purpose since he hardly participated after the opening session.
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