BAGHDAD, Aug. 8 -- Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, made a surprise visit to the battle-scarred holy city of Najaf on Sunday and threatened to forcibly remove armed fighters if they did not leave voluntarily, taking a defiant stand against Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr.
Allawi did not mention Sadr or his fighters, the Mahdi Army, but said he would not negotiate with any militia members. The Mahdi Army has battled U.S. and Iraqi forces intensely over four days.
Militiamen in Baghdad's Sadr City slum hold up a rotor from a U.S. helicopter that made an emergency landing.
(Thaier Sudani -- Reuters)
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"We hope this thing ends as soon as possible," Allawi said. "The gunmen should leave the city and holy shrine quickly, lay down their weapons and return to the rule of order and law, and if not, they will be out by force."
Later Sunday, Iraq's chief investigating judge announced that arrest warrants had been issued for Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi exile leader and a former member of the now-defunct Governing Council, on counterfeiting charges, and for his nephew, Salem Chalabi, on murder charges, the Associated Press reported.
Chalabi had long been a favorite of many in the Pentagon but fell out with the Americans before the U.S. occupation formally ended in June. Earlier this year, U.S. officials accused him of revealing U.S. secrets to Iran, and in May, Iraqi police backed by U.S. soldiers raided his home and the offices of his organization, the Iraqi National Congress. At one time, the group received $335,000 a month from the Pentagon for help in gathering prewar intelligence on Iraq.
The warrants, issued Saturday by Judge Zuhair Maliky, accused Ahmed Chalabi of counterfeiting old Iraqi dinars, which were removed from circulation last year. Salem Chalabi, currently the head of the tribunal trying former president Saddam Hussein, is named as a suspect in the murder of a Finance Ministry official about three months ago, the Associated Press reported.
Both men denied the charges, dismissing them as part of a political conspiracy against them and their family. Ahmed Chalabi is currently in Iran, and Salem Chalabi reportedly is in London.
"The charges that I have been involved in counterfeiting Iraqi currency are false and outrageous," Ahmed Chalabi said in a statement. "I can easily prove that these charges are untrue and I intend to defend myself and clear my name."
The interim government also announced Sunday that it would reinstate the death penalty, which had been banned under the U.S.-led occupation, as part of an effort to quell the insurgency.
"Today is the most difficult day in my career because I am supposed to care for and guard human life," said Bakhtyar Amin, Iraq's human rights minister. "But the deteriorating security situation, the widespread armed attacks on civilian workers and foreign workers, and the increasing cross-border drug trade" forced the government to act, Amin said.
The death penalty would apply only in cases of murder, rape, armed attacks against police and government authorities, and trafficking in weapons and drugs, officials said.
Meanwhile, a group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq issued a videotape asserting that it had kidnapped an Iranian diplomat and showing a passport and business card that identified him as Fereidoun Jahani. The Iranian Embassy confirmed that Jahani had disappeared Wednesday while traveling from Baghdad to Karbala, another Shiite holy city.
The group issued a statement accusing Iranian officials at the consulate in Karbala of inciting strife between Iraq's majority Shiite Muslims and Sunnis loyal to Hussein.
Allawi's declaration in Najaf angered Sadr's top associates and escalated the war of rhetoric. Allawi has previously blamed criminal gangs, not Sadr and his militia, for the fighting, which broke out Thursday in the city and quickly spread to the southern cities of Amarah, Nasiriyah and Basra, and to Sadr City, a large Shiite slum in Baghdad.
