U.S. troops mass near Najaf; al-Sadr talks of martyrdom

By Sewell Chan and Thomas E. Ricks
The Washington Post

	JEROME DELAY / AP A U.S. soldier meets Hazem al-Aaraji, center, an aide to Muqtada al-Sadr, in a Baghdad hotel yesterday. Troops detained al-Aaraji, who was attending a conference, and questioned him for nearly five hours.
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The French, Russian and Czech governments urged their citizens to leave Iraq as a wave of armed kidnappings of foreigners continued. A French television reporter and four Italian security guards were the latest to be reported abducted. Eight employees of a Russian energy company were released, a day after they were seized from their Baghdad house. Early today, Russia said it will begin evacuating about 800 of its citizens and workers with Russian companies tomorrow, news agencies reported. The Ministry of Emergency Situations plans to send seven special flights from Moscow to Baghdad and Kuwait to evacuate specialists from Russia and former Soviet republics who have been working in Iraq, the agencies reported.

The Associated Press reported four bodies have been found, possibly the remains of private contractors missing since an assault on their convoy outside Baghdad.

A State Department official confirmed the discovery of the bodies, but the private U.S. contractor Halliburton said it did not know whether the dead were its missing employees. Initial reports said the four bodies were mutilated, but those reports were not confirmed, the official said.

NBC News reported that the four bodies were in a shallow grave between Fallujah and Abu Ghraib, scene of the convoy attack, and that U.S. officials were led to the grave by an Iraqi.

Iraq developments 2,500 U.S. troops pushed to the outskirts of the Shiite holy city of Najaf for a showdown with anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. A U.S. military helicopter was hit by ground fire near Fallujah and forced to land. Three crew members and seven rescuers were wounded. One Marine was killed in a Fallujah mortar attack. Four bodies were found, possibly the remains of private contractors. Toll for April: At least 87 U.S. troops have been killed and at least 561 have been wounded. — The Associated Press

A spokesman said the U.S.-led occupation authority knew of 40 hostages from 12 countries being held by Iraqi insurgents, at least 15 more than the number publicly reported by individual employers and foreign governments.

Among the presumed hostages are two U.S. Army reservists, seven U.S. civilians employed by Halliburton and three Czech and three Japanese citizens.

Meanwhile, insurgents in the western city of Fallujah fired on an Army transport helicopter, wounding three crew members and forcing the chopper to make an emergency landing. The H-53 Pave Low was the second helicopter downed in Iraq in three days.

The persistent kidnappings, the combat preparations outside Najaf and the resurgence in fighting in Fallujah underscored the tension in Iraq, where the military is battling a two-front insurgency that shows few signs of abating.

Near Fallujah, one Marine died from mortar fire and three members of the helicopter crew were wounded after a rescue crew was attacked by insurgents with mortars, small weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. A second rescue team destroyed the aircraft to prevent it from being looted. Seven Marines were wounded in the area, a spokesman said.

In addition, a soldier with the 1st Infantry Division was killed and another soldier and a civilian contractor were injured early yesterday when their convoy, headed for Najaf, was hit by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad.

Early today, the U.S. military reported the deaths in western Anbar province of four more Marines. Two were killed "as a result of enemy action" yesterday, while the two others were killed Monday, it said in a statement.

April has been the deadliest month since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1. Since April 1, at least 87 troops have been killed and 561 wounded.

About 880 Iraqis have been killed this month, according to an Associated Press count based on statements by Iraqi hospital officials, the U.S. military and Iraqi police. Among those are more than 600 Iraqis — mostly civilians — killed in Fallujah, according to the city hospital's director.

Soldiers from the 1st, 2nd and 25th infantry divisions set up an outpost on the edges of Najaf, an ancient center of learning and the burial site of Imam Ali, the most revered figure in Shiite Islam.

	SCOTT NELSON / GETTY IMAGES U.S. soldiers practice assault tactics Monday at Forward Operating Base Duke near Najaf.

The commander of the 1st Infantry Division flew from his unit's headquarters in Tikrit, about 200 miles north of Najaf, to visit the new base yesterday. "We have consolidated north of Najaf and are preparing for future operations," said the commander, Maj. Gen. John Batiste. Asked why he had visited the base, Batiste said: "We conducted a rehearsal of future operations."

Soldiers pursued several armed al-Sadr followers into the city and killed several. Batiste said he recognized that storming the city would anger the overwhelmingly Shiite population. "Treat the people of Najaf with dignity and respect," The Associated Press quoted the general as saying. "Only bite off the head of the poised rattlesnake."

In Baghdad, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, said the force was engaged in "preparatory operations" and declined to say if combat was imminent.

Al-Sadr remained inside the city, protected by the black-clad militiamen who began a broad-based revolt against the U.S.-led occupation April 4. The militia withdrew Monday from most of the police stations and government buildings in Najaf that it had occupied, but the top U.S. commander in Iraq said on the same day that his goal remains to kill or capture al-Sadr.

Al-Sadr, the son of a widely admired cleric assassinated in 1999, hinted yesterday that the standoff could end peacefully if prominent Shiite leaders asked him to halt his insurrection, according to the Los Angeles Times. Still, he gave no indication he expected a peaceful ending to the impasse.

"I say to Iraqis: Don't consider my death as an end to your efforts to call for freedom and spreading Islam in the world," he said in a televised interview with Al Manar, the satellite television network run by the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah. "I say, as my father did: My body is not important."

At the United Nations, Secretary-General Kofi Annan virtually ruled out sending a large U.N. team to Iraq "for the foreseeable future" because of the recent violence and kidnappings, according to The Associated Press.

He also called for the immediate release of civilians held hostage and greater efforts to reduce the violence so the transfer of power from the U.S.-led coalition to Iraqis can proceed in a positive political atmosphere.

Annan said he did not believe the June 30 date for the transfer could be changed, a view backed by the United States.

Annan said the upsurge in fighting had made things "rather difficult" for the small U.N. team trying to help the Iraqis decide on an interim government that will take power.

Ricks reported from Forward Operating Base Duke in southern Iraq. Correspondent Pamela Constable in Fallujah and special correspondents Omar Fekeiki in Baghdad and Saad Sarhan in Najaf contributed to this report.

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