Sadr militia offers deal

"An Iraqi official [Rahim al-Daraji, the elected mayor of the Sadr City district] authorized to speak on behalf of field commanders for the country’s most powerful militia has approached Western military officials and laid out a plan to avoid armed confrontation, senior Iraqi and American officials said this week.
. . . Mr. Daraji said he represented 14 political and military groups in Sadr City. He said local residents, including [Moktada al-Sadr's] Mahdi Army commanders, wanted to find ways to work with the Americans to avoid any large-scale confrontation. Commanders would tell militiamen to keep their weapons off the streets, he said, if Americans agreed to certain demands.
Some of the actions Mr. Daraji said he had requested in exchange for the promises from the militias seemed likely to draw stony stares from American military officials, namely to stop conducting raids in Sadr City and to release a number of those who had been arrested.
But other demands — to provide jobs for Sadr City residents, to bring in new construction projects and to triple the number of police stations there — seemed more realistic."

source
The New York Times. Iraqi Official Offers Terms From Militia to Avoid Fight. January 25, 2007.

posted: sunday, january 28, 2007, 6:54 PM ET
update: sunday, january 28, 2007, 10:30 PM ET

tags: iraq sadr