UN offers help on Najaf, Allawi calls, Iran issues travel warning

By: Anjum Kermani/ Ismail Zabeeh

UNITED NATIONS/HOLY CITY OF NAJAF: The United Nations has offered to help end the renewed fighting in Iraq between Mehdi militia and the US-led multinational force while Moqtada As-Sadr dismissed Iraq interim Premier Iyad Allawi's call to his militiamen to quit the holy city of Najaf “quickly”.

“The UN is ready to extend its facilitating role to the current crisis, if this would be helpful,” a UN spokesman said in a statement according to Xinhua report.

The spokesman said UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was “extremely concerned” at the widespread fighting that has broken out in Iraq over the last several days, especially in Najaf. Annan called for efforts to work out a ceasefire and a peaceful solution.

Annan “is particularly troubled by the high toll of dead and wounded, including civilian casualties,” he said.

The US army put the toll at 300, while Najaf governor Adnan Az-Zurfi put the death toll at 400, with 1,000 others arrested.

Allawi made the call during his brief, unannounced visit to the war-shattered holy city of Najaf on Sunday. Accompanied by Interior Minister Falah Hassan al-Naqib, Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan, and national security adviser Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie, he urged militants to lay down their weapons.

“We think that those armed should leave the holy sites and the (Imam Ali (p) Shrine compound) as well as leave their weapons and abide by the law,” said Allawi surrounded by a 100-men security contingent.

“There are some elements who have broken the law and hurt this city,” Allawi said. “The situation will be defused soon.”

Meanwhile, Iran issued a fresh warning to its nationals Sunday not to travel on pilgrimages to holy shrines in neighbouring Iraq, and appealed to Iraq to stop issuing them visas.

Ali Asghar Ahmadi, Iran's deputy interior minister in charge of security affairs, told state television the call was made “due to the adverse domestic situation in Iraq.”

According to reports the interior ministry had also asked the Iraqi diplomatic mission here to annul existing pilgrimage visas.

Iraq is home to the holy shrines of Imam Ali bin Abi Talib (p), Al-Imam Al-Hussein (p), Hadrat Al-Abbas (p), Al-Imam Al-Kazim (p), Al-Imam Muhammad Al-Jawwad (p), Al-Imam Ali An-Naqi (p), Al-Imam Al-Askari (p) as well as several holy sites belonged to the holy progeny of Prophet Muhammad (p).

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