Truce fails between U.S., al-Sadr

By Hannah Allam
Knight Ridder Newspapers

Muqtada al-Sadr

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KUFA, Iraq — A truce reached Thursday between U.S. forces and a rebel Shiite cleric broke down yesterday.

In front of the Kufa Mosque, young militiamen furiously loaded mortars into launchers aimed at American soldiers.

A stricken father stood over the fly-covered corpse of his son and a young woman described her hope of becoming a suicide bomber, as the truce between the U.S.-led coalition and Muqtada al-Sadr disintegrated in its first hours. By the end of the day, at least five Iraqis had been killed and two U.S. soldiers wounded in clashes.

U.S. officials and Iraqi leaders had trumpeted the peace agreement reached Thursday with al-Sadr and his al-Mahdi Army. They had hoped to stop al-Sadr's bloody uprising before it further inflamed Iraq's Shiite majority ahead of the June 30 transfer of limited sovereignty.

"There would appear to be violations of the agreement," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a U.S. military spokesman, said in Baghdad. He added it could take "a couple of days before the true cease-fire ... holds."

Early yesterday, promises of a less-visible U.S. military presence in exchange for the withdrawal of militiamen in southern holy cities appeared abandoned. U.S. soldiers in armored vehicles ringed Kufa and prevented cars from entering, leaving thousands of worshippers to dodge U.S. gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades from guerrillas as they walked a now-familiar gantlet to Friday prayers.

"When we saw the American tanks moving in, we resumed our operations," said a 32-year-old guerrilla who called himself Abu Sarmad. "The Americans broke the truce. They act and we react. And we're in the right. We didn't go to their country to fight."

The al-Mahdi Army also was in full force, with lookouts perching on trash heaps to direct gunmen, who staged attacks from the rundown neighborhoods around Kufa Mosque. A soft-drink vendor closed shop and whipped a blanket off a crate filled with dozens of mortar rounds. Masked men gathered around car trunks to dole out rocket-propelled grenade launchers, assault rifles and even long silver swords.

In the mosque, a crowd jostled for a glimpse of al-Sadr, who typically gives a noon sermon laced with anti-American messages and appreciation for his fighters. Under a steamy rain, al-Sadr's supporters sobbed and chanted as they waited for the cleric's arrival.
 
Hundreds of black-robed women crammed so close together in their segregated area that elbows poked into backs as a mosque worker sprinkled them with rose water. Many women identified themselves as al-Mahdi Army fighters who assumed combat roles after their sons and husbands arrived home in coffins in the two months of fighting.

A 30-year-old woman who gave her name as Saha said she was in a training program for an al-Mahdi Army suicide squad, with weekly meetings on politics and religion.

"I would go blow myself up in front of an American base today if I could," Saha said, proudly showing off her white burial shroud trimmed with black flowers. "Only one word from Mr. Sadr would be enough."

While the coalition has repeatedly described the al-Mahdi Army as an untrained, ill-equipped band of thugs, the women at Kufa Mosque painted a picture of a much more organized force.

Umm Karim, 60, said she coordinates cooking groups to feed men on the front line. Umm Nadia, 45, is in charge of first-aid supplies that she says are delivered regularly from Fallujah, a western city where the coalition is battling a Sunni Muslim insurgency. All the women said they provide safe houses for guerrillas and take turns nursing the wounded.

"If I wasn't afraid of Saddam, why should I be afraid of that rat Bush, that dog Bremer and that lizard Kimmitt?" said Umm Nadia, referring to the U.S. president and top occupation authorities. "I have four sons who are fighters in the al-Mahdi Army. My husband is the fifth, and I am the sixth."

By early afternoon, the crowd had grown restless as al-Sadr failed to appear. Most cheered when Ibrahim al Jaffery, a member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, made an unexpected appearance, though one man tried to throw a prayer stone at the politician.

"Muqtada! Muqtada!" they chanted, but still al-Sadr didn't show.

Worshippers jumped to their feet when a voice finally crackled over a loudspeaker to start the sermon. Crowd members exchanged dismayed looks when they didn't recognize the voice as al-Sadr's. His aides later said he skipped the prayer for the first time in weeks to avoid U.S. troops, who appeared poised for his capture.

The substitute imam urged al-Sadr supporters to "sacrifice their blood."