Forces fail to capture al-Sadr

The cleric isn't behind the violence, Iraq's interim prime minister said.
COMBINED DISPATCHES
NAJAF, Iraq -- Iraqi security forces staged an unsuccessful raid Saturday to seize rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shiite Muslim leader blamed by the United States for a surge in violence in this holy city that has claimed scores, perhaps hundreds, of lives.
In their first such move against al-Sadr, members of the Iraqi National Guard and police tried in vain to arrest the firebrand leader at his home here in Najaf near the sacred Imam Ali shrine, the base from which he had urged followers to rise up and eject U.S. forces.
After two days of pitched battles between his supporters and the Americans, fighting eased Saturday.
Station closure
Also Saturday, police ordered Al Jazeera's employees out of their newsroom after the Iraqi government accused the Arab satellite channel of inciting violence and closed its office for 30 days.
Iraqi Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib said the closure was intended to give the station "a chance to re-adjust their policy against Iraq."
"They have been showing a lot of crimes and criminals on TV, and they transfer a bad picture about Iraq and about Iraqis and encourage criminals to increase their activities," he said. "We want to protect our people."
Al Jazeera officials said the closure was an ominous violation of freedom of the press. Haider al-Mulla, a lawyer for Al Jazeera, said the channel would respect the decision but study its legal options.
Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi signed an amnesty Saturday intended to persuade militants fighting a 15-month-old insurgency to put down their weapons and join government efforts to rebuild the country.
But the law pardons only minor criminals, not killers or terrorists, and appeared unlikely to dampen the violence, as some insurgent leaders called it "insignificant."
Explosions
Meanwhile, sporadic explosions and gunfire echoed through Najaf, south of the capital, as Shiite leaders appealed for a renewed cease-fire to end two days of bloody battles between insurgents and Iraqi and U.S. forces in several Shiite communities.
At least 12 explosions rocked central Baghdad on Saturday, apparently targeting the fortified Green Zone enclave housing the U.S. Embassy and Iraqi interim government buildings. The military said some of the explosions appeared to be mortars.
Even as Iraqi forces made their move against al-Sadr, Allawi told a news conference in Baghdad that the government had received "positive messages" from the cleric and concluded that, in effect, he was not to blame for the violence.
"These are bandits and gangs trying to hide behind Muqtada [al-]Sadr," Allawi said of the militants. "We don't think those are his people. There is no statement from him committing himself to them. ... That's why I say it's not him."
In Najaf, which saw the fiercest fighting in Iraq since May, only sporadic conflict was reported Saturday. U.S. helicopters and warplanes droned overhead, and occasional mortar rounds whistled and exploded in the abandoned streets.
U.S. and Iraqi officials said they had made progress in retaking control of a cemetery close to the Imam Ali shrine that was being used as a base and weapons storehouse for members of al-Sadr's Al Mahdi militia. The sprawling graveyard, pocked with caves and mausoleums, was the scene of running battles between militants and U.S. Marines, sometimes reaching hand-to-hand fighting "at the range you can smell a man," Lt. Col. John Mayer said.
Abuse scandal
In other developments, prosecutors told a military judge Saturday to reject defense efforts to call high-ranking administration officials and military leaders as witnesses in a pretrial hearing in the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal, saying that no additional testimony "is going to change the fact that those pictures exist."
Defense lawyers for Pfc. Lynndie England, one of seven soldiers from a Maryland-based Army reserve unit charged in the scandal, said the witnesses would help show that the prison abuses documented in the now-notorious photos from Abu Ghraib prison were led or directed by higher-ranking military intelligence officers.
Col. Denise Arn, an Army reserve judge who is serving as the presiding officer at England's Article 32 hearing -- the military equivalent of a civilian grand jury proceeding -- said she would rule later on how many, if any, of the defense's 160 proposed witnesses should be called.
The list includes Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and a number of military officials connected to the scandal.