World

Report: Deal With Iraq Rebel Chief

October 7, 2004 / 7:36 AM EDT / CBS/AP

Followers of renegade Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have signed a cease-fire with Iraq's interim government aimed at ending weeks of fighting in the vast Baghdad slum of Sadr City, one of the signatories said Wednesday.

However, clashes between al-Sadr's militia and American troops continued despite the talks. Residents of the Shiite district reported hearing explosions Tuesday night.

Under the deal signed Tuesday, militia fighters loyal to al-Sadr's will turn in their weapons in exchange for cash payments and immunity from prosecution for most of the cleric's followers, according to Kareem al-Bakhatti, a pro-al-Sadr tribal elder who helped broker the deal.

Meanwhile, U.S. and Iraqi forces sealed off roads to an insurgent stronghold south of Baghdad and militants bombed two bridges in an apparent bid to hinder troop movement as pro-government forces tried to retake control of the region ahead of national elections.

More than 3,000 U.S. and Iraqi forces on Tuesday launched a major operation to retake control of insurgent-held parts of Babil province — an area notorious for kidnappings and ambushes and home to the fabled city of Babylon.

The Babil operation followed last week's move to oust insurgent forces from Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad.

In other developments:

A suicide car bomber struck at an Iraqi military camp northwest of Baghdad, killing 10 Iraqis and wounding more than 20, Iraqi officials said.

In Basra, a roadside bomb exploded as a British patrol was crossing a bridge, killing one Iraqi and injuring 10 others, police said. Seven people died in a related car accident.

A roadside bomb exploded as a police car was driving through Hit, a town west of the capital, killing one officer, police said.

U.S. troops battled gunmen in Ramaid, an insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad, and in the northern city of Mosul after a series of bombings. At least five American soldiers were wounded. There were also a number of Iraqis killed and wounded, but accounts of the figures varied.

The British government is ready to listen to the kidnappers of Kenneth Bigley but will not enter into negotiations with them for the hostage's release, Britain's foreign secretary said.

The final report of the chief U.S. arms inspector for Iraq was expected to undercut a principal Bush administration rationale for removing Saddam Hussein: that Saddam's Iraqi government had weapons of mass destruction. In drafts, weapons hunter Charles Duelfer concluded Saddam's Iraq had no stockpiles of the banned weapons but said he found signs of idle programs that Saddam could have revived once international attention waned.

A day after suggesting that the United States didn't initially send enough troops to Iraq to stem lawlessness, L. Paul Bremer, the former top U.S. administrator in Iraq softened his assessment, saying he only recognized the problem with the benefit of hindsight and insisted there are enough soldiers on the ground now.

The Washington Post reports the State Department is reevaluating the reconstruction program in Iraq, where only 27 cents of each dollar spent has actually gone to projects helping Iraqis.

In Fallujah, U.S.-led forces unleashed a strike early Wednesday on a suspected safe house in rebel-held Fallujah where leaders of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terrorist network were believed to be meeting, the military said in a statement.

Three houses were flattened in the air strike, but there were no casualties reported.

It was the latest in weeks of strikes in the city west of Baghdad aimed at al-Zarqawi's network and their associates. Followers of the Jordanian militant have claimed responsibility for a string of deadly bombings, kidnappings and other attacks across the country.

On Tuesday, Iraq's Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said the tempo of attacks against insurgent strongholds would increase but acknowledged that the security challenge was a "source of worry."

"I don't want to deny the impact of the security situation nor minimize the size of the challenges we face," Allawi said during a speech in Baghdad. "I believe that many of the Iraqi people agree with me that we should not let terrorist forces decide our agenda."

In Wednesday's operation, the Marines and Iraqis punched their way across the Euphrates River, rounded up 160 suspects, seized a suspected training camp and took control of a major bridge, the U.S. command said. The bridge, spanning the Euphrates, is believed to be a favored corridor linking insurgent areas around Baghdad, Fallujah and towns farther south.

On Wednesday, U.S. soldiers and Iraqi National Guardsmen were sealing off the roads leading to Qasir town in the area of Youssifiyah, preventing anybody from going in or out. A day earlier, insurgents detonated a car bomb in Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of the capital, as the Iraqi National Guard was conducting raids, killing one civilian and wounding 13 Iraqis.

Two explosions — one a car bomb another a roadside bomb — hit two bridges in the area Wednesday, residents said, in an apparent attempt by insurgents to affect the movement of Iraqi and U.S. forces.

The U.S. military lost significant areas of Iraq to insurgents after Saddam Hussein's ouster.

U.S. and Iraqi forces are trying to curb the mounting insurgency in order to hold national elections throughout the country in January. Some U.S. officials have expressed doubt that balloting will be possible in areas that have slipped from Iraqi government control.

"The U.S. military operation is unjustified and most of the arrests are random and it will increase the hostilities in the area," Mohammed Fadhil, the 20-year-old owner of a Youssifiyah grocery shop said Wednesday. "The Americans want to stop the resistance which they call terrorism and this is wrong. In fact is it is legitimate reaction to the occupation"

But others felt the raids were needed to restore order in the region.

"I support the military operation conducted by U.S. soldiers and Iraqi national guards. We should get rid of the armed groups in our area because their (the insurgents) only goal is to kill more Iraqis and to ignite civil war," said Mohammed Hussein, 29, a farmer.