News from Najaf

I'm trying to keep the happenings in Najaf straight in my head. The initial report was that journalists had been asked to leave the city before midday because they could no longer be protected from gunfire. The new Iraqi police gun fire:

"We know you are neutral journalists, even though you have not reported the bad actions by Sadr's people when they beheaded and burned innocent people and the Iraqi police." In view of the media's neutrality "we are protecting you". The order for the journalists to leave had been issued by the Ministry of Interior in Iyad Allawi's interim government, he added.

Mr Jazaree said that while he would not be able to arrest foreign journalists, he would order the arrest of their translators and drivers if they failed to carry out the order.

But nearly five hours after the deadline had passed without incident, police armed with pistols and AK-47s arrived at the hotel and again told all journalists to leave within two hours.

As a group of Arab and Western journalists were attempting to meet the Governor, Adnan Zurufi, to protest against the order, a second police contingent arrived bearing a written order to all journalists in the city to leave. The journalists at the Governor's office were turned back by a plain-clothes security officer who told them: "You have been warned. You have your two hours. If you don't leave you will be shot."

The attempted media ban ­ reminiscent in its own way of the Saddam Hussein regime toppled 15 months ago ­ is in contrast to the media savvy of Sadr spokesmen who have welcomed reporters to the Imam Ali shrine and made visits to the Bar Najaf hotel to give press conferences.

So journalists have been intimidated by Iraqi forces to leave the area. The cynic in me thinks this is so there is no report on the battles that are about to occur. Already there are reports of damage to the sacred mosque that Al Sadr's troops are occupying, and two more America troops have died.

CNN reports that the insurgents have wired the mosque to explode if it is attacked. The report comes from the Iraqi Interior Ministry, which makes me wonder how he would know these things and if it just being reported so that the American led Iraqi forces can destroy at will. This is pure speculation on my part.

Meanwhile about 100 delegates walked out of the Iraqi National Conference to protest the battles in Najaf. Now reports are coming in that the American trained Iraqi soldiers have begun to throw down their arms rather than battle their countrymen.

Sunday's showdown in Najaf was troubled even before the fighting resumed. Several officials from the Iraqi defense ministry told Knight Ridder that more than 100 Iraqi national guardsmen and a battalion of Iraqi soldiers chose to quit rather than attack fellow Iraqis in a city that includes some of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam. Neither U.S. military officials nor Iraqi government officials would confirm the resignations.

"We received a report that a whole battalion (in Najaf) threw down their rifles," said one high-ranking defense ministry official, who didn't want his name published because he's not an official spokesman. "We expected this, and we expect it again and again."

"In Najaf, there are no Iraqi Army or police involved in the fighting. There were in the beginning, but later the American forces led the fighting," said Raad Kadhemi, a spokesman for al-Sadr. "Only the mercenaries and the bastards are supporting the Americans and helping them ... We salute our brothers who abandoned participating in the fight against the Mahdi Army."

(snip)

The officers, most of them decorated veterans from the former regime, shook their heads at the thought of Iraqis battling Iraqis on sacred soil. Several said they would resign immediately if senior officers ordered them to serve in Najaf. They asked to withhold their names for fear of reprimand.

"I'm ready to fight for my country's independence and for my country's stability," one lieutenant colonel said. "But I won't fight my own people."

"No way," added another officer, who said his brother - a colonel - quit the same day he received orders to serve in the field. "These are my people. Why should I fight someone just because he has a difference in opinion about the future of the country?"

So the more we fight, the more we seem to rally the people we need on our side most to Sadr. We cannot even rely on the very army we have helped to train, which has larger implications for when we put them in charge of their own country.

More news and hopefully more clarity as the day moves forward.