NAJAF, April 17: Tension mounted in Najaf on Saturday as backers of wanted Shia leader Moqtada Sadr said mediation efforts with the US-led authority had failed and they feared American troops were poised to attack.
Military commanders and officials also opened a second day of talks with civic leaders in Fallujah in a bid to end a bloody standoff in the guerilla bastion west of Baghdad.
"Mediations with the US side have been halted because the mediators have told us the Americans are putting obstacles towards finding solutions to the crisis and the situation is getting worse," Qais al Khazaali, the head of Moqtada Sadr's office, told reporters in Najaf.
"We are expecting the Americans to attack Najaf any moment now," he said.
Occasional gunfire was heard in the direction of Bahr al Najaf, northwest of the city, where US troops are believed to be camped.
Moqtada Sadr appeared in public for the first time in two weeks on Friday at Kufa's grand mosque warning US forces massed in a desert area nearby that they were "forbidden" from entering holy cities like Najaf or Karbala.
A representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, Iraq's most senior Shia leader, also warned occupying troops against entering Karbala and Najaf, calling them "red lines".
"If the marjaiya (highest Shia religious authority in Iraq) feels that the spilling of blood and carrying of arms prevails, then it will not hesitate to pursue more radical means to achieve its goals (protecting the holy cities)," Sheikh Abdul Mehdi al Karbalai said in his Friday sermon at the shrine of Hazrat Imam Hussein.
FALLUJAH TALKS: In Fallujah, an Iraqi mediator in the talks said as part of confidence-building measures the US marines had repositioned some of their forces to provide vehicular access to the general hospital in Fallujah.-AFP
