Coalition will 'honor and respect' deal with cleric to end Najaf standoff

NAJAF, Iraq — The U.S.-run coalition will "honor and respect" a deal to remove Shiite militiamen and American soldiers from Najaf, an Iraqi said Thursday, even though fine points of the agreement fall short of previous U.S. demands to end weeks of fighting.

Members of Iraq's Governing Council traveled to Najaf to help nail down the agreement after radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr offered to withdraw his militia from Najaf and neighboring Kufa in return for a pullback of U.S. troops and suspension of a warrant charging him in the April 2003 murder of a moderate cleric.

Nearly two months of clashes between al-Sadr's militia and U.S.-led forces have threatened some of Shia Islam's holiest sites and posed a major challenge to the American occupation.

Also Wednesday, three Marines were killed in Anbar province "while conducting security and stability operations," the military said, declining to release further details. The province includes the western suburbs of Baghdad as well as Fallujah, Ramadi and Qaim.

Al-Sadr's offer is part of an agreement between him and the Shiite clerical hierarchy, according to Mouwafak al-Rubaie, the Iraqi national security adviser. U.S. officials have refused direct negotiations with al-Sadr, who is wanted by the coalition.

Nevertheless, al-Rubaie told reporters in Baghdad that "I understand the coalition will honor and respect this deal."

"We sense a strong will of wanting to get to a peaceful settlement," he said.

Al-Sadr has made similar offers before, but it appeared the coalition was taking this one more seriously. One coalition official, speaking on condition of anonymity, called it a "huge" step toward resolving the crisis in the Shiite heartland.

Al-Rubaie said the agreement calls for discussions within the majority Shiite community about the future of al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army and whether the murder case against him should be pursued.

But al-Rubaie could not say whether those discussions might lead to throwing out charges against al-Sadr in the slaying of a rival cleric. Al-Rubaie also avoided saying whether al-Sadr's militia would be disbanded as a result of this process.

Those have been the key American demands for an end to the crisis since al-Sadr launched his anti-U.S. revolt in early April.

The revolt has stirred up violence in formerly peaceful Shiite areas south of Baghdad, further challenging U.S.-led forces who were already battling Sunni Muslim insurgents in central, western and northern Iraq.