by Hassan Abdulzahrah
NAJAF, Iraq, Aug 18 (AFP) - Moqtada Sadr will disarm his militia and leave a holy shrine following a ceasefire, an aide to the radical Shiite Muslim cleric said Wednesday, hours after Iraq`s defence minister threatened to crush his rebellion.
The shock announcement came after Sadr refused to meet delegates from Iraq`s national conference who had braved fierce fighting to journey to the shrine of Imam Ali in the central city of Najaf.
Sadr`s camp cited unexplained security reasons for not meeting with them.
"Sayyed (honorific) Moqtada Sadr has sent a message to the national conference in which he accepted all the conditions extended to him, but there must be a ceasefire for the steps to be implemented," said one of his aides, Ahmed al-Shaibani.
"I have in my hands the acceptance letter from the Sadr movement and from Sayyed (honorific) Moqtada Sadr on the three points put forward by the conference," Jalil al-Shamari, from a dissident branch of the Shiite religious Dawa party, also told the conference in Baghdad earlier.
On Monday, delegates passed a resolution calling on Sadr to disarm, abandon the Imam Ali shrine and transform his organisation into a political party.
"Today, he has accepted the three points to end to Iraqis` bloodletting and demonstrated his desire to take an active role in the new Iraq," Shamari said.
At least 12 people were killed and 14 wounded during fierce fighting between Sadr`s militia and US troops, which were backed by helicopter gunships, in Najaf`s historic Old City, medics said.
Gunfire and mortar attacks continued into the evening.
US forces, supported by Iraqi security forces have effectively trapped Sadr`s Mehdi Army inside the shrine area. Police are also patrolling the city and have slapped a night-time curfew on the city.
The government had stepped up its rhetoric against Sadr, vowing to unleash a formidable assault if he failed to surrender.
"The coming hours will be decisive and we will teach them a lesson they will never forget," Defence Minister Hazem al-Shaalan told reporters in Najaf earlier in the day. "In the coming hours they must surrender."
A statement from Prime Minister Iyad Allawi asserted: "The Iraqi government will not sit idly by in the face of this insurgency, but is serious about restoring security and stability in the holy city as soon as possible."
The cleric`s abrupt about face came as it emerged that some of his retinue had been shortlisted for Iraq`s new interim legislature, due to be elected later Wednesday.
But voting was held up after presiding judge Ahmed al-Arargji ordered both lists of candidates to be revised because they failed to include the correct number of women.
Women had earlier voiced concern they would not get the full 25 seats allocated to them under the interim constitution adopted before the US-led occupation was formally wrapped up due to the influence of Islamist parties.
From the first list, Arargji read out the name of Abdulkahdim Badr, declared a representative of Sadr`s organisation.
The firebrand young cleric publicly boycotted the national conference, dismissing it as the product of the US-led occupation.
Mithal al-Alusi, a leading light in the Iraqi National Congress party of disgraced Pentagon favourite Ahmed Chalabi charged there were numerous Sadr representatives on the list.
"There are more than 10 individuals from the organisation, including Ali al-Yasseri, editor in chief of the Hawza Natiqa newspaper. We tried to persuade them to have a role in the democratic process," he said.
The vote has already been postponed by one day amid a whirl of controversy after hundreds of delegates lashed out at the big political parties for trying to hijack the process.
Elsewhere, five Iraqis were killed and 20 wounded when a mortar bomb slammed into a market in the centre of the main northern city of Mosul, medics said.
At least another four other people were killed when their minibus was trapped in a shoot-out between US forces and insurgents near the southern city of Kut, police and the military said.
Iraqi police said five women students were killed and another five wounded, while the military put the death toll at four.
A US marine was killed in the troubled western province of Al-Anbar as was a soldier in Baghdad, bringing to 705 the number of US soldiers killed in action in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.
US soldiers also killed two prisoners when a fight got out of control at Iraq`s notorious Abu Ghraib prison, at the heart of a US prison abuse scandal earlier this year, the US military said.
And a Turkish truck driver kidnapped in Iraq at the weekend has been released and is on his way back to Turkey, Ankara said.
NATO experts have meanwhile begun training Iraq`s new army, a spokesman said.