Struggling to lift a Kalashnikov, a 12-year-old with the Mahdi army militia said he could do anything in battle except fly a helicopter. "Last night I fired a rocket-propelled grenade against a tank," he said. "The Americans are weak. They fight for money and status and squeal like pigs when they die. But we will kill the unbelievers because faith is the most powerful weapon." The boy called himself Moqtada, styled after the rebel cleric whose ranks he joined a month ago having travelled to Najaf from the Shia slum of Sadr City in Baghdad. He said that he hopes for a glorious death.
| Likely he'll be maimed. Prob'ly have his arms blown off and end up in a hospital in Chicago being fitted for prosthetics paid for by donations from American servicemen... |
There are many more child soldiers in the narrow alleyways of the old city that surrounds the 11th-century Imam Ali shrine, its golden dome marking the mausoleum of Shia Islam's martyred founder and son-in-law of the prophet Mohammed. US armoured vehicles were seen yesterday within 400 yards of the shrine. The American military appears to be moving closer and closer so that a swift all-out assault can be launched. Sheikh Ahmad al-Sheibani, spokesman for Moqtada al-Sadr, the cleric who commands the Mahdi army, yesterday held out little hope of an imminent peaceful solution to the 18-day battle.
| I pretty much don't have any hope for a peaceful solution to the 18-day battle, imminent or otherwise. Without the shrine Tater's just a roly-poly schmuck and he knows it. Since he can't give it up, he won't give it up. |
The outcome of the siege is crucial to the success of the fledgling government in Iraq and it had been hoped that an offer by the rebels to hand over the keys of the mosque to Shia Islam leaders might break the stalemate.
| It's kind of like playing keep-away with a two-year-old... |
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