by Salam Farrag
BAGHDAD, Aug 30 (AFP) - The expiry of an ultimatum for Paris to reverse its ban on Muslim headscarves in schools to free two French hostages loomed large Monday as talks to end the prevailing chaos in the country ploughed on.
The US military held overnight consultations with Moqtada Sadr officials to defuse clashes with his private militia in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City, just days after a three-week assault against the Mehdi Army ended in Najaf.
According to the district`s police chief Colonel Maaruf Alami, a 10-point proposal aimed at calming the persistent troubles was handed to Sadr officials by Iraq`s national security adviser Muwafaq al-Rubaie.
But talks were "stumbling on the final point" -- namely that the rebel militia hand over its weapons, he told AFP.
Many Mehdi Army fighters have also refused to surrender their arms to authorities in Najaf, instead stashing them at home or in safe houses.
The document calls for a seven-day truce, for US troops to stop cracking down on Sadr`s militia and to enter the sprawling neighbourhood, one of the most impoverished in the capital, for reconstruction purposes only.
Security would be the responsibility of Iraqi police.
In public, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has vowed to crush any militiamen who refuse to disarm after top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani ordered the Mehdi Army to quit the central shrine towns of Najaf and Kufa late Thursday.
US and British military spokesmen also played down recent meetings with Sadr officials, saying they barely qualified as negotiations.
"No agreement has been reached. I do not know of a schedule for any other meetings," said US Lieutenant Colonel James Hutton. "We are not pulling out of Sadr City and there is no ceasefire in place."
In the main southern city of Basra, where militia violence has also flared, the local chief of police initiated a meeting with Sadr officials, which the military also attended.
Meanwhile, four Iraqis were killed and five wounded in a US air raid near the hotspot Sunni Muslim bastion of Samarra, where US troops have conducted other deadly offensive operations this month, police and medical sources said.
Tribal leaders and former officers in Saddam Hussein`s army from the city have laid down a similar set of 10 conditions to Allawi for insurgency attacks to halt.
According to the Washington Post, Allawi has met privately with insurgent group representatives in a bid to convince them to accept an amnesty.
Although no deal has been reached so far, Allawi was quoted as saying some of the representatives are "changing horses... and taking the amnesty seriously".
Faced with endemic violence, the US ambassador has suggested more than three billion dollars of US reconstruction aid be diverted to increasing security, boosting oil output and creating local jobs, the Wall Street Journal reported.
John Negroponte made the case in a cable to the US State Department last week, describing the dire security situation and saying the insurgency had become more protracted than anticipated, according to officials.
The money is part of 18.4 billion dollars in Iraq reconstruction aid that Congress approved in November.
Meanwhile, France has dispatched a top offical to Baghdad and its foreign minister to Egypt in a bid to secure the release of reporters Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, who went missing on August 20 in the strife-torn country.
According to Al-Jazeera television, their captors from the Islamic Army in Iraq has demanded Paris rescind its law on headscarves in schools.
France`s ambassador to Algeria, Hubert Colin de Verdiere, arrived in Baghdad as Foreign Minister Michel Barnier made a solemn appeal for their release.
They were "doing their job in Iraq to explain to the world, describe the reality of the situation and the difficult living conditions of the Iraqi people," he said.
France has vowed not to bow to the kidnappers` demands, made late Saturday and insisted that the controversial law would come into effect as planned at the start of the academic year on Thursday.
Italian newsman Enzo Baldoni was shot dead by the same group after Rome refused its demand to pull its troops out of Iraq.
The plight of the two newsmen sparked widespread condemnation and calls for their release from Arab governments, media and Muslim organisations.