IRAQ Officials won't send delegation

Iraqi forces plan to oust militants from the Imam Ali shrine.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraq's National Conference refused today to send a second delegation to the holy city of Najaf to negotiate an end to fighting between U.S. troops and loyalists of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a day after he rebuffed their demand for a meeting.
Violence continued in the city today. Conference delegates suggested they were fed up with al-Sadr, believed holed up in the Imam Ali shrine, after their eight man delegation met with his aides Tuesday but never saw the cleric himself.
"If there were anyone sympathizing with him in the past, there will be none from now on because of this stand," delegate Abdul-Halim al-Ruhaimi said today.
Ousting militants
Meanwhile, Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan said Iraqi forces were now fully trained for a potential mission to oust militants from the shrine. Speaking to the Arab-language television station al-Arabiya, Shaalan said that U.S. forces would not enter the shrine if an operation was carried out.
"There will be no American intervention in this regard. The only American intervention would be aerial protection and also securing some of the roads that lead to the compound. As for entering the compound, it will be 100 percent Iraqis," Shaalan said. "Our sons in the national guard have been trained on the breaking-in operation, which was easy for them," he said.
Amid the clashes, an 8-member delegation from the conference flew Tuesday to Najaf to convince al-Sadr to abandon his uprising. The delegation met the firebrand cleric's aides, but al-Sadr himself failed to show up to meet them.
Al-Sadr aide Ahmed al-Shaibany said the cleric did not show because of the "heavy shelling from the planes and tanks of the U.S. forces."
Violence
Sporadic gunfire and explosions were heard in Najaf again today as clashes continued. Fighting in Najaf has killed six people and wounded 23 others since Tuesday morning, Hussein Hadi of Najaf General Hospital, said today. U.S. troops have avoided the shrine for fear of enraging Shiites worldwide.
Also, a rocket slammed into a busy market in the northern city of Mosul today, killing five civilians and wounding seven, the U.S. military said. Details, including who fired the rocket, were not immediately known.
In Baghdad, delegates prepared to vote for members of a new National Council. As they did, a mortar round hit the roof of Iraq's Foreign Ministry building this afternoon, causing no damage or injuries, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told The Associated Press.
The blast shook the convention center where the National Conference was being held inside the heavily fortified Green Zone enclave, which is home to Iraqi government offices and the U.S. Embassy. Zebari said he believed the Green Zone was the target.
The Iraqi National Conference, a gathering of more than 1,000 religious, political and civic leaders, was extended a fourth day into today because of disagreements over how to elect a council that is to act as a watchdog over the interim government until elections in January.
The fighting in Najaf, especially near the revered Imam Ali shrine, where al-Sadr's militants are holed up, has angered many among the country's majority Shiite population and cast a pall over the conference, which had been intended to project an image of amity and inclusiveness on the road to democracy.
Looking for solution
The conference decided to send an emergency peace delegation to Najaf on Tuesday to try to solve the crisis.
A top conference official said today the delegation would not return to Najaf.
"These delegates will not go again. They presented their proposal; the ball is now in his [al-Sadr's] court," the official said on condition of anonymity. He said a new delegation could go to Najaf from the 100-member council after it is established.
The delegation's peace initiative demanded that al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia disarm, leave the Imam Ali shrine and become a political group in exchange for amnesty.
Qais al-Khazali, an al-Sadr spokesman, welcomed the proposal and said the militants are ready to negotiate it, "but there are no peaceful negotiations with the continuous fighting. I blame the Americans for interrupting the negotiations, because they didn't stop fighting."
The U.S. military said it did not conduct offensive operations during the meeting between the delegation and al-Sadr's aides at the shrine.
"We sat still during the entire time on purpose," said Maj. David Holahan, executive officer of the 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment.
A journalist with the delegation reported that the sound of gunfire and explosions seemed to die down considerably once the group arrived at the shrine compound, which was filled with more than 1,000 young men, chanting and beating their chests. However, more than a dozen outgoing mortar rounds were fired from an area very close to the shrine, apparently by the militants.
Coalition deaths
In volatile Anbar Province, a Marine with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force was killed in action Tuesday during "security and stability operations," the military reported. Al-Sadr militiamen also fought a series of gunbattles with British troops in the southern city of Basra, with one British soldier and one militant reported killed.
In Fallujah, a U.S. warplane fired a missile at a house, killing two people and injuring one, said Dr. Adel Mohammed Moustafa of Fallujah General Hospital. The U.S. military had no immediate comment.