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| Monday, 12 April 2004 |
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US, Fallujah insurgents agree to 12-hour ceasefire BAGHDAD, Sunday (AFP) Two of Iraq's thorniest hot spots were headed for possible respite, with a 12-hour ceasefire about to engage in the Sunni Muslim bastion of Fallujah and a three-day truce in effect in the holy city of Karbala. One US soldier was killed and another was wounded in Fallujah west of Baghdad, just hours before the mediation talks that hammered out the ceasefire, which an Iraqi mediator said was to pave the way for US Marines to leave the restive town. In Karbala, Sheikh Hamza al-Tai, head of the Mehdi Army militia of radical Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr, said that military operations "against Polish and Bulgarian forces stationed here will be ceased until Monday at midnight (20H00 GMT)." Tai said the truce was called to allow for the Arbaeen religious commemoration in Karbala, but the coalition nonetheless warned thousands of pilgrims flocking to Karbala to be alert for terror attacks. Hatem al-Husseini, a senior member of the Iraqi Islamic Party in Fallujah, told AFP that the two sides "have agreed to observe a 12-hour ceasefire" on Sunday. "This will pave the way for the gradual pullout of US Marine troops from Fallujah," Husseini said after a meeting with coalition officials following his return from mediation efforts in the troubled town. Another senior member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, Alaa Makki, earlier told AFP the insurgents in Fallujah had given mediators "a series of conditions for the ceasefire, including a pullout of US forces from Fallujah into the surrounding desert. "They did not give a specific area for the pullout, but logically it would be around five kilometers," he said. "They also asked for opening the entrances to the city to allow people as well as food and medical supply to enter easily and for people to bury their dead," he said. The coalition has "asked for a ceasefire, for handing over those who took part in the mutilation and repeated riots." "The demands of the two parties are logical and should be easy to satisfy," said Makki. "We are all very hopeful because we have been given promises from the two sides, the only difficulty would be in the mechanism of the implementation of the ceasefire because it concerns military operations on the ground," he added. In Baghdad, meanwhile, there were heavy exchanges of fire between US troops and insurgents in the Sunni Muslim district of Aadhamiya. US troops cordoned off the entire neighbourhood after explosions were heard around a former presidential palace used as a US military base. Following Saturday's violence in Falujah, the US-led coalition sent two more battalions, including Iraqi paramilitary forces, to assist two US marines battalions leading the offensive in the city, said the coalition's deputy director of operations, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt. In the United States, President George W. Bush rejected calls to delay the June 30 transfer of power to an Iraqi government, saying this would play into the hands of enemies seeking to "derail Iraqi democracy and seize power". In a combative weekly radio address broadcast, Bush vowed to confront "every challenge" to US efforts to establish a new government in the country, and said that a delay would play into the hands of "enemies" who he said were trying to "seize power". On top of the abductions of at least six foreign civilians the past the week, an armed group said it was holding 30 foreigners and would brutally kill them unless US-led troops pulled out of Iraq. |
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