IRAQ: Iranians help reach cease-fire - USA Today

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IRANIANS HELP REACH IRAQ CEASE-FIRE
By Charles Levinson

USA Today
March 30, 2008

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2008-03-30-iraqnews_N.htm

BAGHDAD -- Iranian officials helped broker a cease-fire agreement
Sunday between Iraq's government and radical Shiite cleric Muqtada
al-Sadr, according to Iraqi lawmakers.

The deal could help defuse a wave of violence that had threatened
recent security progress in Iraq. It also may signal the growing
regional influence of Iran, a country the Bush administration
accuses of providing support to terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere.

Al-Sadr ordered his forces off the streets of Iraq on Sunday. Iraqi
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki hailed al-Sadr's action as "a step in
the right direction." It was unclear whether the deal would
completely end six days of clashes between U.S.-backed Iraqi forces
and Shiite militias, including al-Sadr's.

Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni lawmaker who oversaw mediation in Baghdad,
said representatives from al-Maliki's Dawa Party and another Shiite
party traveled to Iran to finalize talks with al-Sadr.

Iran has close ties with both al-Sadr's movement and al-Maliki, who
spent several years in exile there. Al-Nujaifi said the agreement
was brokered by the commander of Iran's al-Quds Brigade, which is
considered a terrorist organization by Washington.

Haidar al-Abadi, a Dawa legislator who is close to al-Maliki,
confirmed that Iranians played a role in the negotiations. Sadiq al-
Rikabi, a senior adviser to al-Maliki, said he could not confirm or
deny Iranian involvement in the deal.

"The government proved once again that Iran is a central player in
Iraq," said Iraqi political analyst and former intelligence officer
Ibrahim Sumydai.

The nine-point deal was released by al-Sadr's office and read aloud
from the minarets of Shiite mosques across southern Iraq. Al-Sadr
called for the government to stop arresting his followers and
release prisoners who have not been charged with a crime.

Hours later, rockets continued to shake Baghdad. According to the
U.S. military, elements of al-Sadr's militia no longer answer to
him.

Al-Rikabi vowed Iraqi forces will continue a broad offensive
against "criminal elements" in the southern city of Basra and
elsewhere.

Vali Nasr, an Iraq expert at the Council of Foreign Relations, said
al-Sadr had emerged stronger from the battle, which killed more than
300 people. "He let the Americans and the Iraqis know that taking
him down is going to be difficult."

Al-Sadr's militia stood strong, forcing the government to extend a
deadline for them to disarm.

"Everything we heard indicates the Sadrists had control of more
ground in Basra at the end of the fighting than they did at the
beginning," said al-Nujaifi, the Sunni mediator. "The government
realized things were not going in the right direction."