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Iran calls on UN to interfere to stop fighting in Najaf

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Cairo, Aug 17, Itar-Tass/ACSNA/IRNA -- Iran has called on the United 
Nations Organization to interfere in developments in Iraq in order 
to stop the armed clashes in the holy Shiite Muslim city of Najaf. 
"The Americans once again committed a gross error -- they hurt 
Iraqis` religious feelings by using military force in Najaf," 
Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said in a telephone 
conversation with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday. 
Iran`s official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported that 
Kharrazi had requested Annan to use all UN authority to put an end to 
the fighting in the vicinity of the Shiite holy shrine, the Imam Ali 
mausoleum in Najaf. 
Most of the Iranian population, just like in Iraq, comprises 
Shiite Muslims. 
The Iraqi holy city of Najaf, housing shrines of Shiite Muslims, 
was declared a zone of military operations early Monday morning. 
The Iraqi Interior Ministry has warned the population of an 
operation to liquidate armed formations of the Mehdi Army that is 
fighting US and Iraqi interim gov`t forces. 
Reporters have been ordered to quit the city under the threat of 
arrest. The only television station continuing transmissions from the 
scene is the Al-Arabia television Channel of Dubai. 
According to Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, "The unconditional 
surrender of gunmen is the only way out of the formed crisis." 
The head of the Iraqi transitional government has refused to hold 
any kind of talks with firebrand Shiite leader Moqtada Al-Sadr "until 
this is fulfilled." 
According to news reports, tense calm prevailed over the night in 
Najaf as residents prepared for a major offensive which the US is 
reportedly preparing to launch in the next few days after the 
breakdown of negotiations for a ceasefire. 
The American military on Monday blocked the Umm al-Qura mosque in 
Baghdad, where the headquarters of the largest religio-political 
organization of Iraqi Sunnis, the Association of Muslim Clerics 
(AMC), is housed. 
The Qatari satellite television channel Al-Jazeera reported that 
the American troops did not let anybody in or out of the mosque and 
carried out searches in the building as well. 
"The American military obviously want to harm us," a member of 
the AMC, Abdel Gafur al-Samarrai, said live on Al-Jazeera television. 
"They know very well that the Umm al-Qura mosque houses the 
association`s headquarters which opposes occupation of Iraq." 
The AMC had earlier decisively refused to participate in an 
Iraqi national conference that opened on Sunday to elect a national 
council to oversee the Iraqi Parliament. 
The association`s leaders said the conference does not represent 
the interests of all the Iraqi people. 
The AMC leadership also voiced support for the leader of the 
insurgent Shiite Muslims of the country, Moqtada al-Sadr. 
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