| Can we go for "Surrender or Die"? |
EFL:
An Iraqi Cabinet minister issued an ultimatum to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr Thursday, warning that Iraqi forces were poised to launch an offensive if he did not immediately disarm his militia and hand over its weapons. The threat by Minister of State Qassim Dawoud came a day after the firebrand cleric agreed to a peace deal to end two weeks of fighting between U.S. and Iraqi troops and al-Sadr's al-Mahdi militia forces, who are holed up in the revered Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf. The cleric also must sign a statement saying he will refrain from future violence and release all civilians and Iraqi security forces his militants have kidnapped. In addition, al-Sadr must hold a news conference to announce he is disbanding the Mahdi Army, Dawoud said. "The military action has become imminent," Dawoud told reporters. "If these conditions are not met, then the military solution will prevail."
After hearing Dawoud's threat, Sheik Abdul Hadi al-Daraji, a spokesman for al-Sadr in Baghdad, called for talks to quickly "stop the bloodbaths in the holy city of Najaf." "What we want is for the parties to sit down and cooperate. To ask a side, or the Sadrist movement, to disarm, I think is not logical and not right. They should rather sit around a negotiating table and determine what's right and wrong," he told Al-Arabiya television.
|