IRAQ: THE MEHDI ARMY WILL END ARMED PRESENCE IN NAJAF AND KERBALA IF UNITED STATES TROOPS LEAVE THE HOLY CITIES
Record ID:
647814
IRAQ: THE MEHDI ARMY WILL END ARMED PRESENCE IN NAJAF AND KERBALA IF UNITED STATES TROOPS LEAVE THE HOLY CITIES
- Title: IRAQ: THE MEHDI ARMY WILL END ARMED PRESENCE IN NAJAF AND KERBALA IF UNITED STATES TROOPS LEAVE THE HOLY CITIES
- Date: 24th May 2004
- Summary: (W6) KERBALA, IRAQ (MAY 22, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. SLV PILGRIMS WALKING TOWARDS MOSQUE COMPLEX; SLV AL ABBAS MOSQUE; SLV PEOPLE IN FRONT OF MOSQUE ENTRANCE 0.17 2. SLV GOLDEN DOOR OF MOSQUE; PEOPLE COMING TO PRAY; PEOPLE KISSING MOSQUE DOOR; SLV INTERIOR MOSQUE COMPLEX 0.39 3. SLV ZOOM OUT DAMAGED BUILDINGS NEAR MOSQUE AND SQUARE; SLV MARKET STREET WHERE MILITIA WERE FIGHTING US SOLDIERS; SLV DAMAGED MARKET STREET 1.12 4. (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) MAN IN THE MARKET SAYING: "After Kerbala residents called for the occupation forces and all the militia to pull out of Kerbala, thank God, they responded and pulled out from the city. Now the city is safe and quiet." 1.25 5. SLV DAMAGE TO MARKET STREET; SLV PEOPLE IN DAMAGED MARKET STREET; SLV DAMAGED BUILDING 1.50 (W6) BAGHDAD, IRAQ (MAY 22, 2004 (REUTERS) 6. REPORTERS AT NEWS CONFERENCE WITH DEPUTY CHIEF OF COALITION OPERATIONS IN IRAQ BRIGADIER GENERAL MARK KIMMITT AND COALITION PROVISIONAL AUTHORITY (CPA) SPOKESMAN DAN SENOR 1.58 (SOUNDBITE) (English) DEPUTY CHIEF OF COALITION OPERATIONS IN IRAQ BRIGADIER GENERAL MARK KIMMITT SAYING: "I keep hearing these reports. We are not aware of any withdrawal from Kerbala. We re-positioned some forces inside Kerbala. Its quite a stretch to consider that to be anything remotely resembling a withdrawal" 2.16 7. MV KIMMITT SHOWING PHOTOGRAPHS OF WHAT THEY FOUND IN THE VILLAGE ATTACKED ON THE SYRIAN BORDER IN WHICH FORTY PEOPLE WERE KILLED 2.37 8. (SOUNDBITE) (English) KIMMITT SAYING: "We are continuing to explore all possibilities of what happened on the ground. But the more we look at the intelligence, the more we look at post strike intelligence, the more that we continue to dig into what we found at the location, the more we are persuaded that there was not a wedding going on. There might have been some kind of celebration" 2.58 9. SLV REPORTERS 3.00 (W6) NAJAF, IRAQ (MAY 22,2004) (REUTERS) 10. WIDE OF IMAM ALI HOLY SHRINE; DELEGATIONS ARRIVING 3.14 11. (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) ALI HUSSEIN TRIBE LEADER SAYING AFTER THE MEETING "There are ongoing negotiations between us and Sistani's office and Sayed Moqtada al-Sadr's office and we hope that these meeting will produce results and we are always optimistic even in the hard situation like this." 3.40 12. STREET SCENE 4.10 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 8th June 2004 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: KERBALA, BAGHDAD AND NAJAF, IRAQ
- Country: Iraq
- Reuters ID: LVADNBPTJ8GCKZV8YRIPJN5C3JFD
- Story Text: The Mehdi Army will end their armed presence in
Najaf and Kerbala if U.S. troops leave the holy cities.
The Mehdi Army militia of rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr
will end their armed presence in Najaf and Kerbala as soon as
it is clear that U.S. troops have withdrawn from the holy Iraqi
cities, a top aide to Sadr said on Saturday (May 22, 2004).
"We are prepared to end our armed presence the moment
the occupation forces leave the holy cities and give guarantees
of that," Qais al-Khazali, who refused to speak
on camera, told reporters. "There are no guarantees up to
now that the occupying forces will not go back to the holy
shrines."
Fighting has ceased in the holy Iraqi city of Kerbala
where US tanks withdrew from the mosque area and militia
loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Sadr said they would lay
down their arms from the moment the troops withdrew.
Earlier in the week Iraq's most revered Shi'ite cleric,
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, called on both U.S. forces and
the Mehdi Army to withdraw from the holy cities.
The U.S. military has repeatedly said it will not
negotiate with Sadr, who is wanted in connection with the
murder of a rival cleric in Najaf last year.
Iraqis ventured back onto the streets of Kerbala on
Saturday giving the holy city some respite after weeks of
clashes between U.S. troops and Shi'ite militia fighters.
The streets were once again busy with traders and
shopkeepers after weeks of subdued activity.
Schools, which had been shut during the fighting,
reopened, and witnesses said U.S.-backed Iraqi police,
overwhelmed by Sadr's fighters when the uprising against
the U.S.-led occupation erupted last month, were back on
the streets.
Pilgrims to the shrines, who are the livelihood of most
people in the city and had stayed away during the heaviest
fighting, made their way through the city on Saturday.
Despite the withdrawal, residents said they expected
fighting to resume in the days ahead and said militiamen
loyal to radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr remained
holed up in the city centre, even if they were less visible
than before.
Militia fighters, who refer to themselves as the Mehdi
Army, said they were ready to resume fighting at any time.
In recent weeks, U.S. forces and the Mehdi Army have
fought fierce street-to-street battles not far from the
mosque, one of the most important shrines in Shi'ite Islam.
There had been 2,000 fighters hiding out in buildings
in Muqayam, an area that saw the heaviest fighting last
week and is not far from the Imam Hussein shrine. On
Saturday buildings and shops in the market bore the scars
of heavy fighting.
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered Shi'ite
cleric in Iraq, called on U.S. troops and Shi'ite
militiamen this week to withdraw from Kerbala and from the
nearby city of Najaf, home to another major Shi'ite shrine,
the Imam Ali mosque.
Some Kerbala residents saw the U.S. withdrawal as an
invitation to Sadr's fighters to quit the city as well, a
prospect the guerrillas said was out of the question.
But at a new conference in Baghdad a senior US military
official said there had been neither a withdrawal of troops
or Mehdi fighters nor any agreement.
"I keep hearing these reports. We are not aware of any
withdrawal from Kerbala. We re-positioned some forces
inside Kerbala. Its quite a stretch to consider that to be
anything remotely resembling a withdrawal," Kimmitt said.
He also spoke about the killing of some 40 Iraqis near
the border with Syria saying intelligence gathered seemed
to indicate that there was no wedding celebration as
survivors had said.
Iraqis say they were celebrating a wedding and that the
US forces killed innocent people. The US military says they
suspected the village was hiding insurgents.
Kimmit showed photographs of items they found in these
houses which included passports from different countries,
identity card making machines and weapons.
"We are continuing to explore all possibilities of what
happened on the ground. But the more we look at the
intelligence, the more we look at post strike intelligence,
the more that we continue to dig into what we found at the
location, the more we are persuaded that there was not a
wedding going on. There might have been some kind of
celebration," he said.
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