U.S., militia forces to leave Najaf

Gunmen attacked a U.S. Army patrol in Baghdad.
NAJAF, Iraq (AP) -- American and Shiite militia forces agreed to withdraw from the holy cities of Najaf and Kufa and turn over security to Iraqi police, the governor of Najaf province said today.
The withdrawal was scheduled for later in the day, said Gov. Adnan al-Zurufi. His announcement came one day after aides to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said they would begin removing their fighters from the cities, although there was no sign of any such movement by late afternoon.
Al-Sadr criticized the new Iraqi government and said he would accept "nothing less" than an elected leadership in Iraq.
Also Friday, unknown gunmen attacked a U.S. Army patrol on Palestine Street in Baghdad near the Shiite district of Sadr City, and the 1st Cavalry Division said four soldiers were wounded. It was unclear whether the attackers were al-Sadr's forces or Sunni Muslim insurgents.
Elsewhere, a roadside bomb hit a civilian car on the highway north to Mosul in Tareimiya, 18 miles north of Baghdad. After the blast, unknown assailants approached the car and opened fire on the men inside.
Five men, who may have been foreigners, were killed in the attack, according to an Iraqi security officer, speaking on condition of anonymity. U.S. Army and Iraqi security forces were investigating the incident, the officer said.
Police to take charge
The potential breakthrough calls for al-Sadr's militia and the Americans to remove their forces from the two cities, which contain some of the most sacred shrines in Shia Islam, al-Zurufi said. The Iraqi police will assume full responsibility for security in the two cities this evening.
"All fighting forces, the coalition forces and the al-Mahdi Army militia, should leave the two holy cities and not allow any of their elements to enter again," al-Zurufi said.
Col. Brad May, commander of the U.S. 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, said the military agreed to move its forces "to the periphery of these sensitive areas" of Najaf and Kufa "while the police can move in."
May defined "sensitive areas" as the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf and the Kufa mosque. Al-Zurufi promised the Americans that al-Sadr's militia had "been reduced to the point where the legitimate Iraqi security forces can move in to those very sensitive areas. It's an Iraqi solution to the problem."
The uprising began in April after the U.S.-led coalition shut down al-Sadr's newspaper, arrested a top aide and announced an arrest warrant charging him with murder in the April 2003 death of a moderate cleric in Najaf.
Statement
Al-Sadr failed to mention the deal in a statement read on his behalf in the mosque in Kufa, where he routinely preaches.
"America has taken upon itself to appoint a prime minister and a president of the nation under the cover of the United Nations," al-Sadr's message said. "It has done that with impertinence and domination. The government must be elected and I will never accept anything beneath that."
He said he could not imagine "any reasonable person would ever accept" a government "which comes from no less than the occupying power."
A Shiite Muslim preacher allied with al-Sadr also had stinging words today for U.S. plans for Iraq's future, labeling Iraq's interim government American "puppets." Sheik Raad al-Kadhimi al-Saadi said a proposed U.S.-British resolution under consideration by the U.N. Security Council would cement Iraqi sovereignty in American hands.
The country's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, has given conditional endorsement to the new administration announced Tuesday by U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. Al-Sistani said the government would have to win the trust of the people by regaining genuine sovereignty, restoring security, preparing for elections by Jan. 31 and relieving the suffering of the Iraqi people.
Al-Sadr asked today what right Brahimi had to appoint a government and warned the United Nations to change its policy on Iraq "or we will stage protests and sit-ins against you. You do what the Americans want you to do."
Al-Sadr's condemnation of the new government was expected and although he lacks the stature of al-Sistani, the young cleric's remarks signal that the leadership will face a problem among his impoverished Shiite followers.
Attack on station
In Baghdad, Shiite insurgents fired mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades at a police station housing U.S. troops, touching off firefights early today that killed three Iraqis.
Helicopters and jet fighters flew over the station during the exchanges that the insurgents say came after U.S. troops tried to raid homes and arrest militiamen. A mortar round killed two militiamen and a civilian, an al-Sadr official said on condition of anonymity.
"This is the democracy George Bush brought us," shouted one young boy as he displayed a blanket that was burned and tattered in the exchanges.