Moqtada al-Sadr will disarm his militia and leave a holy shrine following a ceasefire, an aide to the radical Shi'ite Muslim cleric said, hours after Iraq's defence minister threatened to crush his rebellion.| I'm still voting for "Crush with extreme prejudice." |
But US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice warned that Sadr could not be trusted to keep his word and that he would have to be "dealt with". And an armed group in Iraq meanwhile threatened to kill a kidnapped American journalist unless US forces withdraw from Najaf within 48 hours. "An armed group calling itself 'Martyrs Squad' has announced that it is holding American journalist Micah Garen... and threatened to kill the hostage after 48 hours if US forces do not withdraw from the city of Najaf," Al-Jazeera television in Doha reported. The news channel aired a video in which the presumed hostage is shown with five hooded gunmen in the background, one of whom is reading a statement which is not audible.
The announcement in Najaf that Sadr would pretend to disarm his militia came after the cleric had refused to meet delegates from Iraq's national conference who had braved fierce fighting to journey to the shrine of Imam Ali. Sadr's camp had cited unexplained security reasons for not meeting with them. "Sayyed Moqtada Sadr has sent a message to the national conference in which he accepted all the conditions extended to him, but there must be a ceasefire for the steps to be implemented," said one of his aides, Ahmed al-Shaibani. | A road map! How original! |
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