Current mayhem in Iraq, 8/13

Al Sadr is wounded or maybe he isn’t. The US has stopped attacking the Mahdi Army and is reportedly engaged in truce talks. This has the warfloggers hopping mad, and if you read their comments you’ll see that the neocons, Likudniks and Arab-haters are fragmenting from the Republican types who are defending Bush from accusations of appeasement and failing to smite the enemy with an iron fist, to hell with the consequences. Sadr has set some conditions to the truce, which triggered new howls of horror from the bomb junkies.

So, why did the US back off? If you remember, yesterday the military spokesman started emphasizing that the Marines (aka infidels) weren’t going into the Imam Ali shrine, oh no. The Iraqis were going to do it. What Iraqi would be insane enough to do this, you ask? Well, none of them, apparently. Not even the Kurds. It’s my opinion that once the peshmerga realized they were getting the shrine attack dumped exclusively on them, they backed off, for very good reasons, not least of which is that they were outnumbered.

British journalist James Brandon, “I’ve been released thanks to the Mahdi Army, because they intervened and negotiated with the kidnappers.” Those Brits are so polite.

Mahdi Army guerillas in Basra abducted a British journalist but turned him loose on Sadr’s orders.

I’ll update this posting with interesting developments through the day, as I did yesterday.

UPDATE: Thousands descend on Najaf after Sadr urges Shiite militia to fight on

Thousands of Iraqis descended on Najaf after Moqtada Sadr urged his Shiite militia to fight on, while US and Iraqi forces closed in on his stronghold and a British journalist was abducted in the south.

Around 2,000 demonstrators marched under the blazing sun from Najaf’s twin city of Kufa after Friday prayers, straight through the US and Iraqi lines to the revered Imam Ali mausoleum.

Showered with sweets and water, they embraced members of Sadr’s Mehdi Army who have battled US-led forces for nine days in this beseiged pilgrimage city and shouted their support for the cleric and his fighters.

“All of us are soldiers of Moqtada Sadr. With our blood and our soul, we serve you Ali” chanted demonstrators, none of them carrying weapons.

Militiamen refused 5,000 dinar notes being handed out by one man, waving him off. “We are mujahedeen,” or holy fighters, they said, as he desperately tried to shove the money in their pockets.

In Baghdad, a Sadr spokesman urged thousands more to march the 160 kilometres (100 miles) to Najaf, as another 1,000 began a similar walk from the holy city of Karbala.

“As we gather here, outside the headquarters of the agent of the occupation who have brought nothing but death and destruction to this country, we order you to march to Najaf on foot,” Sayed Hazem al-Araji told worshippers gathered outside the Green Zone, which houses the US embassy and some government offices.

In Karbala, Sadr representative Sheikh Abdulrazaq al-Nadawi told the faithful: “We’re going to Najaf to break the seige on our brothers”.

Mass protests were also held in Tallafar in the north and Kut al-Hayy in the south to denounce the caretaker government, while in Basra another Sadr aide pressed Iraqi police and national guardsmen to join the Mehdi Army.

In the Sunni Muslim bastion of Fallujah, 1,500 people called for holy war.

I included an article about this convergence of Shi`a on Najaf yesterday from a rather dubious source, but it seems to have been confirmed by this AFP article.

UPDATE: In Kut:

Seven Iraqis were killed and 34 wounded as US forces attacked suspected Shiite militia positions in the southern city of Kut, a hospital official said Friday, as the governor warned of air strikes if fresh violence broke out.

A woman was among six people killed and 20 wounded when US shells hit the Izzat district on the Tigris River, said the chief of Kut’s general hospital.

“The Americans also hit an Iraqi National Guard post by mistake in the Al-Haidariya neighbourhood, killing one guardsman and wounding 14 others at around 2:00 am (2200 GMT),” he added.

UPDATE: Hilla:

A group of 20 Polish soldiers have been surrounded by several hundred militants loyal to Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr at a police station in Hilla, southern Iraq, a Polish military spokesman said on Friday.

“Our soldiers were helping the Iraqi police, when their post was surrounded. Negotiations with the militant forces are under way, but there is no shooting going on,” Polish General Staff spokesman Colonel Zdzislaw Gnatowski said.

UPDATE: US bombs Fallujah again

US planes have bombed several targets in the Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah for the second day, killing four Iraqis, including two children.

Fallujah Hospital director Rafeh Iyad says another four people, including one child, have been wounded.
[…]
Several people had also killed and injured in US raids on the city on Thursday.

From the elipse: The US military says it has no information on the attacks on the city, which is west of Baghdad. How is that possible? A mystery bombing, I guess.

UPDATE: Sadr tells “interim government” to resign:

The spokesman quoted Sadr as telling supporters at Imam Ali Mosque: “I advise the dictatorial, agent government to resign … the whole Iraqi people demands the resignation of the government … they replaced Saddam with a government worse than him.”

“I will not leave this holy city,” the spokesman quoted Sadr as telling supporters who chanted “No, no to America.” “We will remain here defending the holy shrines till victory or martyrdom.”

Doesn’t sound like the truce is coming along very well.