He added: “What can I do? Believe me I will listen to any suggestions These are our people They are killing us We just represent the law. Al-Arabiya had taken its information from a “man of sedition” who was “used by Muqtada al-Sadr and people from al-Qa’ida”.He told the reporters that he had not been responsible for the way they had been summoned and added: “You are not arrested. One policeman declared: “You are responsible for many deaths”, while another repeated earlier threats to blow up the hotel.Maj-Gen Jazaari appeared especially exercised about a report on the Dubai-based al-Arabiya network – five of whose team in Najaf were briefly detained yesterday – which he said had claimed that the Ayatollah Sistani was already in Najaf. It said: “We ask all believers to volunteer to go with us to Najaf. I have come for the sake of Najaf and I will stay in Najaf until the crisis ends.” Members of the ayatollah’s team said he intended to depart for Najaf at 7am today. US and Iraqi forces sought to tighten their narrowing cordon round the insurgent forces loyal to the militant Shia cleric Muqtada Sadr.In Basra, Hayder al-Safi, a Sistani aide, read out a statement said to have been issued by the ayatollah. The most venerated Shia cleric in Iraq made a sudden intervention in the Najaf crisis yesterday by returning to the country and calling on his supporters to march to the embattled holy city.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani was expected in Najaf today after arriving yesterday in Basra from Kuwait as his lieutenants suggested that he had proposals for ending three weeks of fighting in the city.Ayatollah Sistani’s return came amid intense fighting around the streets leading to the compound of the Imam Ali shrine.

Ambulances cannot usually penetrate the area around the Imam Ali shrine, at the heart of the fighting.Last Friday, hospital officials said that only five of the estimated 77 people killed in a bombing raid the previous night were brought to the hospital.. You should stay at home and Allah will help us to have a living” But he adds: “My job is a humanitarian one I do it for the sake of Allah. I would pick up injured Americans, injured Mehdi Army people, IPs [Iraqi policemen], anyone. That’s my job.”Would he not be better off working for the police for up to five times the salary? “No, because we are serving the people more than the police.

My job is a more humanitarian job than theirs.”And yet for all the risks, Abu Sadiq and his colleagues are taking, they know they are saving only a fraction of the injured. Police regularly check ambulances for Mehdi weapons but, he says, they also used another ambulance themselves to transport weapons How does he react to this? “It is a kind of oppression. They are using us,” said Abu Sadiq, who like many on the front line of this treacherous battle prefers to give a familiar name rather than his real one.Najaf police deny they use ambulances to carry weapons and accuse the Medhis of doing so. Whatever the truth, Abu Sadiq knows all about the latter charge. About 12 days ago, as he was returning to the hospital, he was stopped by police who were suspicious because his delivery had been close to Mehdi positions.He claims he was hit around his right ear with rifle butts and left unconscious on the street where he was found by a taxi driver. So why, after all this, has he come back to work? He admits his family say, “Your life is in danger.

This ambulance, it turned out, was commandeered by the police and the two officers in the front were shot dead by Mehdi insurgents.According to Abu Sadiq, the event made the Mehdi Army more suspicious of bona fide ambulances. Thirteen of the city’s 32 ambulances have been destroyed.An ambulance at the depot is riddled with bullets; blood is splashed on the inside of the doors; the windscreen is smashed and a tyre is flat. “The Mehdi Army call me a traitor and say I’m with the police; the police say I’m with the Mehdi Army,” he explained.Three ambulancemen have been killed since the present battle began three weeks ago – one by a mortar attack on the room at the hospital the drivers and paramedics use between calls. He has been beaten up; every day he braves shooting from all sides to do his work; and he gets paid a mere $65 a month. For Abu Sadiq is one of Najaf’s 80 ambulancemen who risk their lives every day to bring the injured and dying to al-Hkeem hospital, the only one of the three main hospitals in the city functioning for civilians.
At 39, Abu Sadiq has been an ambulanceman for 15 years; but this is the first time he has been caught up in a conflict in which both sides regard him as an enemy. Abu Sadiq can reasonably claim to have one of the most thankless and dangerous jobs in the world. About 72 per cent said that they opposed same-sex nuptials, while just over 2 per cent favoured it.