Iraqi interim Defense Minister Hazem al-Shaalan said Shiite fighters must surrender within hours, as he visited the holy city of Najaf. "The coming hours will be decisive and we will teach them a lesson they will never forget," he told a news conference in Najaf, according to AFP. "In the coming hours they must surrender," Shaalan said Wednesday, stressing that Iraqi troops were making the "final military preparations" should they not lay down their weapons.
In a related development, Iraq's National Conference refused Wednesday to dispatch a second mission to Najaf to negotiate an end to the standoff between American forces and loyalists of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a day after the latter rebuffed their demand for a meeting. According to AP, conference envoys suggested they were fed up with al-Sadr, believed holed up in the Imam Ali shrine. "If there were anyone sympathizing with him in the past, there will be none from now on because of this stand," delegate Abdul-Halim al-Ruhaimi said Wednesday. |