Raid of Iraqi shrine looms
2004-08-18 15:55
Najaf - Iraqi defence minister Hazem Shaalan said the government could raid this city's holy Imam Ali Shrine as early as Wednesday in a final push to root out Shiite militants hiding there.
"Today is a day to set this compound free from its imprisonment and its vile occupation," Shaalan he said during a meeting with tribal sheiks and provincial governor Adnan al-Zurufi.
Militants loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr have been fighting US forces in Najaf for nearly two weeks.
The militants have taken refuge in the shrine compound, from where they launch some of their attacks on the Americans.
Shaalan's threat came a day after Sadr failed to show up for a meeting with a peace delegation sent from Baghdad.
The delegation instead presented its peace proposal to his aides.
Now that the peace talks have not worked, "we have to turn to what's stronger and greater in order to teach them a lesson that they won't forget, and to teach others a lesson as well," Shaalan said.
After Shaalan's threat, renewed sounds of bombing and gunfire were heard near Najaf's Old City, the centre of much of the previous fighting.
Shaalan said Iraqi forces were now fully trained to carry out a raid of the shrine, one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam.
He reiterated that US forces would not enter the shrine, which would almost certainly cause an uproar among the country's majority Shiites.
"There will be no American intervention in this regard.
"The only American intervention would be aerial protection and also securing some of the roads that lead to the compound.
As for entering the compound, it will be 100% Iraqis," Shaalan said in comments aired on the Arab-language television station Al-Arabiya.
"Our sons in the national guard have been trained on the breaking-in operation, which was easy for them," he said.
While never referring to Sadr's Mahdi Army militia by name, Shaalan referred to those who occupied the shrine as a "gang dressed in the clothes of religion."
State minister Qassim Dawoud said the planned raid on the shrine would send a message to insurgents throughout the country.
"This will be a civilized lesson for those in Fallujah, Samarra, Mosul, Yusufiyah or Basra. There is no lenience ... with those people," he said.
- AP