Sistani Returns to Iraq, Calls for March on Najaf
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Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, returned to the country on Wednesday and urged Iraqis to march on the "burning city" of Najaf, where fighting is creeping ever closer to its sacred shrine.
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NAJAF, Iraq -- Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most respected Muslim cleric, returned to this beleaguered city yesterday and persuaded rebel leader Moqtada al-Sadr to end a bloody three-week standoff with US and Iraqi government forces.
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KUFA, Iraq  - Powerful anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr appeared in public for the first time in months on Friday, presenting himself as a champion of all Iraqis and demanding that U.S. troops get out of Iraq.
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NAJAF, Iraq  - Iraq's most revered cleric arrived  in Najaf Thursday to try to end a bloody three-week uprising  but attacks on crowds of Shi'ites that killed at least 74  inflamed tensions as tens of thousands converged on the city.
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NAJAF, Iraq - Guns were largely silent in Najaf for the first time in weeks and thousands of Iraqis thronged the revered Imam Ali shrine Friday after Iraq's top Shiite cleric made a dramatic return to this holy city and won agreement from a rebel cleric and the government to end the fighting between his militia and U.S.-Iraqi forces.    The renegade Muqtada al-Sadr accepted the proposal in a face-to-face meeting Thursday night with the 75-year-old Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani...
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Iraq&#39;s top Shiite cleric unexpectedly returned to Iraq from Britain on Wednesday armed with a new peace initiative and a call for Iraqis across the country to march
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Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani plans to lead a march to the shrine in Najaf that has been commandeered by fighters loyal to Moktada al-Sadr.
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BAGHDAD, Iraq - A delegation of Iraqis arrived in Najaf on helicopters Tuesday to present radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr with a peace proposal aimed at ending the violent insurgency wracking the holy city.    The peace proposal, cobbled together Iraq's National Conference in Baghdad, demanded that al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia put down its arms and join Iraq's political process in exchange for amnesty...
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17 August 2004 -- Eight members of Iraq&#39;s National Conference arrived today in Al-Najaf in a bid to end a violent uprising in the city led by radical Shi&#39;ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
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Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has just arrived in Najaf to try to end the stand-off involving Shia fighters led by the radical cleric, Moqtada Sadr.
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U.S. tanks and troops rolled back into the center of Najaf and battled with Shiite militants Sunday, reigniting violence in the holy city just as delegates in Baghdad opened a conference meant to be a landmark in the country's movement toward democracy.
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Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top Shiite cleric, arrived in Najaf today hours after a mortar barrage hit a mosque in Kufa, killing at least 27 people.
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BAGHDAD, Iraq - A pared-down delegation of Iraqis arrived in Najaf by helicopter Tuesday to present radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr with a peace proposal aimed at ending the violent insurgency wracking the holy city.    Despite the delegation's presence there, fighting intensified in Najaf, with at least one U.S...
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Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, seen by many as crucial to ending the Najaf crisis, is back in Iraq from the UK.
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MARK COLVIN: To Iraq where the Shi&#39;ite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani is on his way back to the holy city of Najaf, with around ten thousand followers joining his convoy from Basra in Iraq&#39;s south.
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BASRA, Iraq  - Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric headed  for Najaf on Thursday to try to get rebels inside a holy shrine  to leave and bring an end to three weeks of bloody fighting  that has killed hundreds.
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Iraq&#39;s Shiite spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, left the southern Iraqi city of Basra early on Thursday on his way to the troubled central city of Najaf, where he hopes to bring an end to fighting between US forces and supporters of rebel