Najaf standoff causing Shiite rift

As delicate negotiations with aides of outlaw Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr falter, Shiite tribal and religious leaders are beginning to worry that the month-long standoff between Mr. Sadr's Mahdi army and US forces might expand into an intra-Shiite conflict that could threaten Iraq's stability.

In recent days, Shiite political groups have been ratcheting up their rhetoric against Sadr - especially in Najaf, where leading Shiite clerics are rapidly losing patience with his presence.

On Tuesday, Sheikh Sadr al-Din al-Qubanchi, a senior cleric aligned with Iraq's largest Shiite political group, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), called for mass demonstrations in Najaf against Sadr.

"We all want to protect the holy places against danger and prevent any possibility that the city will be turned into a military bunker or [have] street fighting," says Mr. Qubanchi. "And we have to cooperate to achieve this."

If that doesn't work, Qubanchi hinted that SCIRI would use its 10,000-strong militia, the Badr Brigade, to push Sadr's militia to the outskirts of town, where US troops could easily finish them off.

"We could have a bloody confrontation between Shiite groups in Najaf," says Sheikh Fatih Kashif al-Ghitta, a cleric from a prominent Najaf family. "That would be a very dangerous escalation - it could cause deep divisions in the Shiite community."

Tensions have risen between Sadr and more moderate Shiite clerics in recent weeks, with some Sadr aides openly criticizing Shiite clerics.

"Where are the ones who said that Najaf was a red line?" demanded Sadr aide Sheikh Abdul-Hadi al-Darraji, in a thinly veiled reference to Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who called Najaf's city limits a "red line" that American troops should not cross.

"We came here to prove that the evil forces won't be able to destroy Islamic unity," says Mr. Darraji, speaking to thousands of mostly Shiite worshipers at a joint Sunni-Shiite prayer surface at Baghdad's Sunni Abu Hanifa mosque last Friday.

"Your enemies came to plant a rift between the Shiites and the Sunnis, and they failed because Islam is one. And after the occupiers finished from Fallujah they turned toward Najaf to attack our leaders and our symbols."

Thursday, gunfire and explosions rocked the city of Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, with fighting concentrated near the holy Imam Abbas shrine. It was the third straight day of clashes in Najaf and Karbala, Shiite Islam's two holiest cities, where Sadr's Mahdi army has been skirmishing with US troops for more than a month. Sadr himself remains in Najaf, where he has been holed up since early April.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ghitta and other moderate Shiite leaders scrambled to salvage an agreement with senior Sadr aides to disarm his Mahdi army. First presented a month ago, the deal offered Sadr a way to save face by surrendering himself to Iraqi tribal authorities, rather than American forces, to stand trial for the assassination of a rival Shiite cleric.

In exchange, the Mahdi army would disband and both it and American forces would pull out of Najaf. Last week, the deal's architects gave Sadr a deadline of May 15 - Saturday - to accept the deal.

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