At the start of his second day in Iraq, Pope Francis on Saturday morning flew to Najaf for a private meeting with the Grand Ayatollah Ali Al- Al-Sistani at his residence, as part of his historic three-day visit to the country amid the COVID-19 (...)
US cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr returned to Iraq Wednesday from years of self-imposed exile in Iran, after his faction struck a deal to join a new government, Sadrist officials said.
A somewhat diminished maverick whose militia was once viewed by US (...)
Iraqi police imposed a curfew to prevent an outbreak of violence in the southern Shiite city of Najaf Friday after a senior aide to cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr was shot dead.
US aircraft killed 12 people in airstrikes overnight in strongholds of Sadr's (...)
Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr will consult senior religious leaders and disband his Mehdi Army militia if they instruct him to, a senior aide said on Monday.
The surprise announcement came on the day Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, in a (...)
Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr called on his followers Sunday to stop battling government forces after six days of fighting in Iraq's south and the capital threatened to spiral out of control.
The government immediately welcomed Sadr's (...)
Influential Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr on Saturday ordered his followers to reject Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki's call to surrender their arms as clashes with troops raged for a fifth straight day.
Sadr's orders came as US jets widened the (...)
Iraq's firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr has acknowledged splits within his movement as he explained the reasons for his long absence from the public eye, in a statement released Friday.
Sadr, who last month extended the ceasefire of his (...)
A battle between U.S.-backed Iraqi troops and insurgents raged into Monday morning after Iraqi officials said they foiled a plot to attack pilgrims and kill leading religious clerics in the city.
Iraqi interior and defense ministry officials told (...)
The U.S.-led coalition handed over security responsibilities in Iraq's northern Najaf province to Iraqi forces Wednesday morning in a ceremony.
Najaf was the third of Iraq's 18 provinces to come under
local control. British troops handed over (...)
The Iraqi official who heads a committee to determine which areas could be transferred from multinational control listed seven cities Saturday that would be among the first to transfer from multinational to Iraqi control.
«There are some stable (...)
A car bomb killed five people on Saturday between the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Kerbala, sites of twin suicide car bombings a week ago, the chief of police in Najaf said.
Ghalib al-Jazairi said those killed were civilians but the bomb in the town (...)
Fifty people suspected of involvement in Iraq's insurgency have been detained in Najaf following Sunday's suicide car bombing in which the death toll has risen to 52 killed and over 140 wounded, the governor said.
Provincial governor Adnan al-Zurfi (...)
Iraqi security forces stormed a house
in this Shiite Muslim holy city early Wednesday, leaving
one suspected insurgent and one policeman dead, police
said.
The shootout came after an explosion Sunday in Najaf's
city center left 54 people dead (...)
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is reported to have reached a peace deal Thursday with radical Shiite cleric
Moqtada al- Sadr after hours of negotiation aimed at ending three weeks of conflict in Najaf.
U.S. broadcaster CNN said the five-point plan (...)
Government officials and aides to
Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr were negotiating Friday to end the violent confrontations that have plagued the Shiite holy city of Najaf for the past
nine days, the governor said.
With the talks ongoing, the U.S. (...)
Militia loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr kept their hold on a revered shrine as clashes flared in Najaf on
Sunday, raising fears a resolution to the crisis in the holy city could collapse amid bickering between Shiite leaders.
An unofficial (...)
The sound of heavy gunbattles resonated throughout the holy city of Najaf on Thursday, as U.S.
forces battled militia loyal to radical Shiite cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr.
The stepped-up fighting signaled the beginning of a major
offensive against (...)
U.S. helicopter gunships opened fire on Shiite fighters hiding in Najaf's massive cemetery Tuesday
as U.S. patrols armed with speakers warned them to
leave the city immediately or face death.
U.S. tanks drove into the cemetery, explosions shook (...)
Iraq's prime minister ordered Shi'ite fighters to lay down their weapons and leave the holy city of Najaf on Sunday, but fighting raged on with U.S. helicopter gunships pounding guerrilla positions.
During a brief tour of Najaf on Sunday, during (...)
