U.S. frees aide to rebel cleric during talks

By Karl Vick
The Washington Post

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BAGHDAD, Iraq — The U.S. military released a senior aide to the rebellious Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr yesterday, and al-Sadr aides said momentum was growing toward an agreement to disband the cleric's militia and end a major element of the insurgency in Iraq.

Moayed Khazraji, a fiery Baghdad cleric whose arrest a year ago signaled the start of a U.S. crackdown on al-Sadr's movement, walked out of Abu Ghraib prison yesterday morning. No explanation for the release was offered by the U.S. military or Iraq's interim government.

But Khazraji's sudden freedom was taken as a gesture of good faith in negotiations aimed at transforming al-Sadr's following into a political movement before nationwide elections promised for January. The release of imprisoned senior aides has been a primary demand of the al-Sadr camp.

The disbanding and disarming of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia would be a major accomplishment for the interim government, which is struggling in large tracts of the country to establish the security needed to hold free elections.

Al-Sadr's following draws heavily on young, poor Shiite Muslims neglected or abused by the former government of Saddam Hussein. It is the only insurgent movement to take hold among Shiites, who account for an estimated 60 percent of the country's population of 25 million. A peace deal could calm much of Iraq's southern half and the east Baghdad slum of Sadr City, where for weeks the 1st Cavalry Division has pressed the fight against the militia.

Another al-Sadr spokesman told an Arabic-language news channel that under the deal, the fighters would turn in heavy and medium weapons, such as mortars and rocket propelled grenades. The remarks by Ali Smeisim to al-Arabiya echoed the terms detailed a day earlier by interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

Allawi, who has authorized the U.S. military to keep the pressure on the militia in Sadr City, which is named for the cleric's revered father, added that al-Sadr's side also promised to respect the authority of Iraqi police, who will patrol that area in place of U.S. troops.

Parallel negotiations for control of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, are set to resume tomorrow, according to participants.

"We told the government that we don't want peace like the one they provided in Najaf. We don't want a peace like the one they restored in Samarra," said Khaldi Jumaili, an insurgent leader who took part in negotiations. He referred to U.S. military offensives that ejected al-Sadr's forces from those cities.
 
The apparent progress came amid continued lethal ambushes of U.S. forces and new attacks targeting Westerners in Baghdad.

A soldier with the 13th Corps Support Command was killed and two others wounded, one seriously, by an explosive device Wednesday night near Fallujah. A roadside bomb killed a 1st Infantry Division soldier and wounded a civilian interpreter near Baiji, north of Baghdad, around midnight Wednesday, the military reported.

Early today, U.S. aircraft attacked what the U.S. command said was a hideout of terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Fallujah. The military said "credible intelligence sources" reported terrorist leaders were meeting there.

A Fallujah doctor said the attack killed 10 people, including a bridegroom on his wedding night, and wounded the bride and 16 others. Residents reported several other strong explosions in the insurgent stronghold through the night.

A so-called improvised explosive device was also discovered in front of a restaurant frequented by U.S. civilians and military in the heavily fortified Baghdad compound known as the Green Zone. The discovery of the bomb, which was disposed of without injury, elevated security warnings in the Green Zone, which the interim government and U.S. Embassy share with Iraqi residents and workers.

The device, which was stashed behind an air conditioner, was found by a bomb-sniffing dog during a security sweep before an official arrived. A U.S. military ordnance-disposal team disabled the device.

A military intelligence report on the incident said the composition of the bomb indicated that it "had to have been smuggled in and manufactured by a terrorist cell rather than an individual." The unidentified author of the report continued: "Although this attack failed, it is strongly believed that they will continue."

A hotel housing many U.S. contractors and journalists was also targeted. Insurgents fired 155-mm artillery shells toward the Ishtar Sheraton hotel in early evening from what witnesses described as homemade tubes on a van. One shell struck a wall between two rooms on the first floor, setting fire to both and filling the hotel's six stories with smoke. There were no injuries.

The U.S. military keeps a small security contingent at the hotel, and during the attack, several of its members were having dinner in a penthouse restaurant. The soldiers scrambled to windows and returned fire, aiming tracer rounds at the van and three cars they said escorted it. It was at least the third such direct attack on the hotel, none of which has resulted in injuries.

Information on the bomb found in the Green Zone was from a Knight Ridder Newspapers report. Information on the Fallujah bombing was from The Associated Press.