[Actualizado] MALAS NOTICIAS para los resistentes del clérigo borderline y sus amiguitos mediáticos: parece ser que al-Sadr se ha retirado, con el rabo entre piernas, de Kerbala:

American commanders said early Sunday that insurgents loyal to a rebel cleric appeared to have given up control of central Karbala, where they had been shielding themselves at two shrines.

According to the commanders, there were several strong signs that the armed supporters of Moktada al-Sadr, the maverick Shiite cleric, have abandoned the area and ceded authority to the Americans and their allies after nearly three weeks of urban combat.

A large overnight raid met no resistance coming from a group of buildings where insurgents had been firing at American tanks with rocket-propelled grenades. Civilians were seen returning to homes in central Karbala that they had abandoned during fierce fighting. And in the afternoon on Saturday, tribal sheiks approached American commanders offering to persuade the militia, the Mahdi Army, to lay down its arms and leave the city.

"It looks like they just packed up and went home," Col. Peter Mansoor, commander of the First Brigade of the First Armored Division, said in an operations tent on the city outskirts where he monitored field reports. Referring to Mr. Sadr, Colonel Mansoor said, "I think his days are numbered."

At around 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, in the midst of the raid, three Iraqi civilians walked up to American soldiers and asked why they would attack the buildings. The civilians said the Mahdi Army had dropped their weapons on Friday night and left the area, according to a radio dispatch from an American field commander.Not a shot was fired Friday night at a large convoy of Bradley fighting vehicles driving through the city center — something unheard of since the First Armored Division began its offensive nearly three weeks ago.

[...] An Iraqi reporter for The New York Times in Karbala said he had seen militiamen putting their weapons in bags in recent days and trying to leave the city. Some residents of the city have distributed fliers denouncing Mr. Sadr and the presence of his fighters.

American commanders said they would press the Iraqi police to do patrols in the old city in the next week. Whether and how the police get attacked will determine how much is left of the insurgency, the commanders said.

If the insurgency in Karbala has truly dissipated, then Mr. Sadr's six-week insurrection has suffered badly. Though the Americans clamped down on the rebellion, Mr. Sadr had managed to maintain his grip on three towns: Karbala; the nearby holy city of Najaf, where he lives; and Kufa, a town adjacent to Najaf where Mr. Sadr preaches.

He might be restricted to Najaf and Kufa, but the Americans are testing those cities, too, though with care.

La heroica "resistencia" deshaciéndose como un azucarillo en un vaso de agua.

ACTUALIZACIÓN: Zeyad, uno de los bloggers iraquíes, traduce una declaración conjunta del consejo de ulemas chiíes de Kerbala y Najaf. Copio aquí sólo dos puntos, pero leed el resto:

2. It is the movement of Sayyid Muqtada that has encouraged the occupiers to cross the red lines. And as aside from that, the American occupiers while storming into Iraq and marching towards Baghdad through Najaf and Karbala did not commit the stupidities and insolence with regard to the sanctities in the two holy cities they have committed now.

3. And it is clear that the organization of Sayyid Muqtada - and whoever follows the Sadrist movement - were the first to violate the sanctity of the yard of Haydari Shareef (Imam Ali's shrine in Najaf) when they fired shots inside it at Sayyid Abdul Majeed Al-Kho'ei and killed Sayyid Yasiri within it and wounded Sayyid Majeed and killed Sayyid Hayder Al-Kelidar afterwards. And they are the very same who ignited the fuse of the bloody fight, whose victims among gathered believers were sacrificed over control of the shrine of Imam Hussein (peace be upon him), and it is possible for our lord [Nasrallah] to verify the former by asking his Excellence the Marji' Ayatollah Sheikh Ishaq Al-Fayyadh and from the sons of his Excellence the Marji' Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad Sa'eed Al-Hakim and the latter with the help of his Excellence Sheikh 'Abdul Mahdi Al-Karbala'i, the representative of the Marji'iyah in Karbala and from his Excellence Sayyid Muhammad Ridha Al-Sistani [the son of Grand Ayatollah Sistani] in person.