The New York Times > International > Middle East > Inside Falluja, a Cease-Fire in Name Only American commanders were also closely monitoring reports from inside Najaf said that growing anger of residents there against Mr. Sadr and his militiamen, who have sown a pattern of lawlessness since launching an uprising in the city earlier this month, had taken a startling new turn with a shadowy group of assassins killing at least five Sadr militiamen in attacks on Sunday and Monday.
Those reports, from residents of the city who reached relatives in Baghdad by telephone, said the killings had been carried out by a group calling itself the Thulfiqar Army, after a two-bladed sword that Shiite tradition says was used by Imam Ali, the martyred son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed, the patron saint of Shiism. Accounts of the killings said the new group had distributed leaflets in Najaf threatening to assassinate members of Mr. Sadr’s militia, known as the Mahdi Army, unless they left Najaf immediately.
One Najaf resident said some of Mr. Sadr’s militiamen were shedding the black clothing that had been their signature during the weeks that they have occupied Najaf and large parts of other cities in central and southern Iraq with majority Shiite populations.
The same resident said that he knew of two killings of Mahdi Army members on Sunday, near a roundabout in Najaf named for the 1920 tribal revolt against British colonial authority in Iraq, and that three more Sadr militiamen had been killed later on Sunday or Monday.
…reports of violence against Mr. Sadr’s followers in Najaf suggested that the American occupation authority might finally be seeing the beginnings of Iraqis taking action of their own to curb the firebrand cleric - as the American administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, recently urged in a television address…
Those reports, from residents of the city who reached relatives in Baghdad by telephone, said the killings had been carried out by a group calling itself the Thulfiqar Army, after a two-bladed sword that Shiite tradition says was used by Imam Ali, the martyred son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed, the patron saint of Shiism. Accounts of the killings said the new group had distributed leaflets in Najaf threatening to assassinate members of Mr. Sadr’s militia, known as the Mahdi Army, unless they left Najaf immediately.
One Najaf resident said some of Mr. Sadr’s militiamen were shedding the black clothing that had been their signature during the weeks that they have occupied Najaf and large parts of other cities in central and southern Iraq with majority Shiite populations.
The same resident said that he knew of two killings of Mahdi Army members on Sunday, near a roundabout in Najaf named for the 1920 tribal revolt against British colonial authority in Iraq, and that three more Sadr militiamen had been killed later on Sunday or Monday.
…reports of violence against Mr. Sadr’s followers in Najaf suggested that the American occupation authority might finally be seeing the beginnings of Iraqis taking action of their own to curb the firebrand cleric - as the American administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, recently urged in a television address…
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