"It's very strange that Allawi asks the Mahdi Army to leave the city," said Ahmed Shaibani, Sadr's spokesman in Najaf. "How can people leave their city? They are Iraqis, not foreigners. We wish to negotiate. Allawi has to know that the Sadr trend has a big popular base in Iraq. He is making a big mistake by refusing to negotiate."
A spokesman for Sadr in Baghdad, Hazem Aaraji, said the fighters would not back down.
Militiamen in Baghdad's Sadr City slum hold up a rotor from a U.S. helicopter that made an emergency landing.
(Thaier Sudani -- Reuters)
|
|
"Today Allawi came to give orders to his army to destroy the Sadr trend without knowing that the Mahdi Army fighters are ready for martyrdom," Aaraji told the al-Arabiya satellite network. "The Iraqi forces started the blood pool. The Mahdi Army are defenders, not attackers."
Iraqi religious and political leaders have called for negotiations to end the clashes.
Mohsen Abdul Hamid, a Sunni scholar who leads the Iraqi Islamic Party and was a member of the Governing Council, said Sadr "should handle the situation wisely and withdraw and go back to the negotiations."
Hamid said he was ready "to help in solving the problem," echoing a sentiment expressed on Saturday by Shiite political party leaders.
An official at Hakim Hospital in Najaf said 36 civilians were killed and 143 wounded during the past four days.
The fighting is the worst in Iraq since Sadr staged an uprising in April and May. An uneasy truce brokered in June to end that fighting fell apart Thursday. The Mahdi Army blames Iraqi and U.S. security forces for violating the truce, while U.S. and Iraqi forces blame the militiamen.
The heaviest fighting came on Thursday and Friday, when the U.S. military reported that more than 300 fighters were killed in battles with U.S. Marines and Iraqi security forces. Shaibani, the Sadr spokesman in Najaf, said 15 Mahdi Army fighters were killed and 35 wounded.
Fighting continued Sunday in Najaf and in Sadr City. The Iraqi Health Ministry reported Sunday that 40 people had been killed in the day's clashes.
Iraqi security forces and U.S. Marines withdrew from Najaf on Sunday, pulling out in a snake of green military vehicles. But U.S. forces continued to fight the militants from the air, using helicopters to fire on Mahdi Army encampments.
Mortar rounds hit the municipal building where Allawi and his interior and defense ministers were meeting with the governor of Najaf. Witnesses said that an unknown number of civilians were injured in the attack but that Allawi escaped unharmed.
[A U.S. Marine was killed in action Sunday in western Iraq, the Reuters news agency reported. In a statement Monday, the U.S. military said the Marine was killed in Anbar province, which includes the volatile cities of Falluja and Ramadi, but gave no details.]
The Mahdi Army set up illegal checkpoints in Sadr City on Saturday, preventing people from entering or leaving the area, and few residents wandered outside Sunday.
A U.S. Army helicopter made an emergency landing just north of the neighborhood on Sunday, the U.S. military said. Two pilots escaped uninjured.
Jubilant gun-toting men tore off pieces of the helicopter and attached pieces of the ragged metal to the butts of their rifles. They danced in the streets, shouting and showing off their souvenirs.
U.S. Maj. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, commander of the 1st Calvary Division, which is responsible for security in Sadr City, said the Iraqi fighters had not gained full control of the large Shiite slum during the clashes.
"We have seen nowhere near the violence of April," Chiarelli said, referring to the Sadr-led uprising in which hundreds were killed.
Special correspondents Saad Sarhan in Najaf and Bassam Sebti and Omar Fekeiki in Baghdad contributed to this report.
