http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/30/international/middleeast/30CND-IRAQ.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 30 ? Fighting erupted today in the center of the holy city of Najaf for the first time since the American-led coalition and a rebel Shiite cleric announced a cease-fire agreement last Thursday. Four Iraqi civilians and three American soldiers were injured, a hospital official and a military spokesman said.
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The flare-up of violence seemed to indicate a further erosion of the announced truce between occupation forces and Moktada al-Sadr, the 31-year-old cleric.
Another sign of ongoing instability was the fact that prominent Shiite politicians and religious and tribal leaders met again in Najaf today to debate what to do about the seemingly intractable problem posed by Mr. Sadr. The last time the "Shiite house" met was on Thursday, when it helped hammer out the details of the cease-fire.
The meeting today took place at the office of Bahar al-Oluum, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council and a prominent Shiite cleric. Mr. Oluum's representative, Ali al-Kuraishi, declined to give details of the meeting, saying only that representatives of the occupation forces were also present and that the Shiite leaders hoped to reach a peaceful solution to the crisis. But representatives of Mr. Sadr have yet to meet with the occupation forces, he added.
A military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, suggested today that it was too soon to tell whether the cease-fire had gone by the wayside and said the battle in Najaf today could be an isolated incident.
The clash broke out near the city's sprawling cemetery when a patrol of soldiers from the First Armored Division came under fire from insurgents armed with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, General Kimmitt said.
Earlier this month, American soldiers surrounded the Najaf cemetery with tanks and attacked insurgents whom commanders accused of shooting at soldiers with mortars. Shiite pilgrims come from all over to bury their dead in the cemetery, a dense sea of tombs and small minarets. It is the perfect hiding place for guerrilla fighters waging a hit-and-run war against an occupying force with far superior firepower.
On Saturday, five battles broke out in the adjoining city of Kufa between American forces and insurgents. Fighting had also erupted there on Friday, and Mr. Sadr had avoided going to the Kufa mosque to deliver his weekly anti-American sermon. But the violence today was the first time that the cease-fire had been violated in Najaf, a much larger city that is centered on the golden-domed Shrine of Ali, one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam.
General Kimmitt said on Friday that the fighting in Kufa "would appear to be violations" of the agreement. Today, he said it was unclear exactly why insurgents were still attacking American troops. Perhaps it was because these fighters had not received word of the cease-fire, he said, or because they belonged to a splinter group that did not take orders from Mr. Sadr.
Officials on both sides said on Thursday that Mr. Sadr had agreed to order his militia, the Mahdi Army, to lay down arms in exchange for the Americans pulling troops from the centers of Najaf and Kufa. In addition, insurgents who were not residents of Najaf or Kufa were supposed to leave those cities. The agreement appeared to be a major step toward ending a nearly eight-week uprising launched by Mr. Sadr.
But today, large groups of armed fighters still walked the streets of Kufa, flaunting their AK-47's and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. General Kimmitt said his understanding was that the agreement for the fighters to lay down their weapons applied to both Najaf and Kufa. But Mr. Sadr might be interpreting the agreement as only applying to Najaf, he said.
"Moktada's militia is a declared hostile force," General Kimmitt said at a news conference. "Our soldiers have the obligation to take action. Our soldiers certainly have the inherent right to self-defense."
Under the conventions of war, soldiers can legally attack combatants of a "declared hostile force" without being shot at first. In effect, General Kimmitt was saying that American soldiers have the right to shoot at insurgents just for having weapons on display.
Iraqi officials have said the Americans agreed to the compromise with Mr. Sadr after being pushed toward it by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most influential cleric in Iraq. Ayatollah Sistani is an Iranian Shiite who lives a block from the Shrine of Ali, and he had been growing increasingly concerned over the battles taking place near that shrine and two other holy shrines in the nearby holy city of Karbala. On May 21, days after residents of Karbala protested in the streets at the urging of Ayatollah Sistani, American forces and insurgents withdrew from the center of Karbala.
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A senior military official said the "center of gravity" in Iraq was the will of the Shiites, who make up at least 60 percent of the population, and that the Americans were desperate not to lose whatever support that group can give.
The cease-fire agreement reached in Najaf on Thursday, neither requires Mr. Sadr to disband his militia nor requires him to submit himself to an arrest warrant that an Iraqi judge has issued in connection to the murder last April of Abdul Majid al-Khoei, an American-backed cleric who had returned from exile to Najaf.
Today, people in the streets of Najaf were handed mysterious fliers with Mr. Sadr's picture that said: "Moktada was followed by the Iraqi police for this ties to the slaying of Khoei, and due to violent actions he was killed during an attempt to arrest him." Another flier was distributed that had a photo of an Iraqi police officer and the following words: "The Ministry of Justice tried to arrest Mr. Sadr, but he and his followers resisted fiercely, which drove the Iraqi police to defend themselves."
The fliers appeared to be leaflets made by the Ministry of Justice or its allies to be handed out in case Iraqi police officers killed Mr. Sadr in an arrest attempt. Somehow, they were distributed prematurely. There were no reports of Mr. Sadr's death today.
Mr. Sadr's office also issued a statement of rapprochement to Sadr al-Din al-Kubanchi, a prominent cleric linked to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, an influential Shiite party known as SCIRI. After a prayer service on Friday, gunmen shot at Mr. Kubanchi outside the Shrine of Ali but failed to harm him. Members of Mr. Sadr's militia captured one of the attackers, but declined to turn him over to the Badr Organization, the armed wing of SCIRI.
That has led SCIRI officials to accuse Mr. Sadr and his militia of organizing the assassination attempt and then trying to cover it up. Mr. Kubanchi has denounced both Mr. Sadr and the occupation forces in his Friday sermon in recent weeks.
In the statement issued today, Mr. Sadr denied any role in the attack.
"I send my greetings and my willingness to meet you and my brothers in SCIRI and the Badr Organization," Mr. Sadr said. "You can hold your weekly Friday prayer, and I am ready to attend it hand in hand with you to ensure your safety."
An Iraqi employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Kufa and Najaf for this article.
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