Iraqi peace team afraid to travel

NAJAF - Fear of ambushes last night delayed a team of Iraqi political and religious leaders from travelling to Najaf to seek a peaceful solution to fighting in the city.

Fawzi Hamza, an independent politician leading the team, said the mission had not been cancelled, but he could not say when they would leave for security reasons.

The peacemakers were hoping to urge radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to stop fighting American forces and leave a shrine where he is holed up.

Najaf's police chief has threatened to storm the shrine of Imam Ali if al-Sadr's militiamen refuse to disarm and leave.

"Even if there are negotiations, the militiamen have to disarm and leave not just the shrine but the province," said Major General Ghalib al-Jazaari. "We will storm the shrine and kill each one of them if they do not disarm and leave the province."

The violence in Najaf, which started on August 5, threatens to destabilise the new interim Government, already coping with a Sunni insurgency.

It is overshadowing the National Conference, an unprecedented gathering of 1300 religious, tribal and political leaders meant to be a key first step towards democracy.

It was the conference that voted to send the peace delegation to Najaf, 160km to the south.

Although the violence in Najaf was relatively light yesterday, police chief al-Jazaari said al-Sadr's militants broke into his family's house in the southern city of Basra and kidnapped his handicapped and ill 80-year-old father in an effort to intimidate him.

"They dragged him on the street in front of the local residents."

Al-Jazaari said the gunmen were accompanied by police loyal to al-Sadr and the militants told him the only way to secure his father's release would be to take hisplace.

In the southern city of Nasiriyah, police said a Western journalist, Micah Garen, and his Iraqi translator, Amir Doushi, had been kidnapped as they walked through a crowded market.

The pair were abducted on Friday by two men in civilian clothes and armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles.

Adnan al-Shoraify, deputy governor of Dhi Qar province, said Garen had US and French citizenship.

Fighting in Najaf killed two US soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division, the military reported yesterday. A third soldier was killed in volatile Anbar province, the centre of the Sunni insurgency.

The US military estimates that hundreds of insurgents have been killed since clashes broke out in Najaf, but the militants dispute the figure. Eight Americans have been killed, the military says.

Al-Jazaari said 40 of his police had been killed and accused militants of torturing, maiming and then burning the bodies of some.

At least 19 policemen, including his nephew, were beheaded, hesaid.

Another officer was found yesterday with his throat slit in his car in the city centre, said Brigadier Amer Hamza, the deputy police chief.He blamed the militants.

Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi asked UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to intervene to help stop the fighting, which has undermined the Government in the eyes of Shiites, angered by the sight of US troops firing around some of their holiest sites. US commanders have ordered the shrine to be kept out of the line of fire.

- AGENCIES

Herald Feature: Iraq