BAGHDAD, August 27 (IslamOnline.net) - The hastily reached peace deal to defuse the crisis in Najaf is in fact a "doomed truce" as it left some very serious loose ends pertaining to the crisis and the situation in Iraq in general, analysts and observers anticipated Friday, August 27.

Shiite leader Muqtada Al-Sadr ordered his militiamen to lay down arms and leave Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf, as part of the deal with Iraq's most revered religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani.

Still, the deal leaves many questions unanswered over the future of Sadr and his militiamen putting on fierce resistance to the US occupation forces in other Iraqi cities.

"The Sadr-Sistani deal is rather a Shiite attempt to defuse the crisis between different trends of the sect, rather than a genuine effort to end the firebrand’s dispute with the government," political analyst Ali Al-Hashemi told London-based Al-Quds Press news agency Friday.

Al-Hashemi added: "Tension is there, as Shiites attempt to rearrange their house and save a feared internal collapse."

Imam Ali Shrine, controlled by the Sadr militiamen before the deal, is revered by the world’s 120 million Shiite Muslims as a place of pilgrimage. It had suffered damage during more than three-week clashes between Sadr loyalists and US-led Iraqi forces.

Observers said the peace deal did not cover the political future of Sadr, wanted by the US-backed Iraqi government for alleged murder of a rival Shiite leader, and whether his followers will turn into a political group.

The deal did not make any mention of the fate of Sadr’s Mehdi Army militiamen, or whether its call for disarmament covers other militiamen engaged in fierce clashes with US and Iraqi forces in the Sadr City in Baghdad and other southern areas.

Press reports claimed that dozens of militiamen piled Kalashnikov rifles in front of the offices of Sadr.

But thousands others were still believed to be armed in the city, though most were staying off the streets. In one narrow alley, some militiamen could be seen pushing carts full of machine-guns and rocket launchers.

A spokesman for Sadr reportedly stressed that the fighters were disarming, not disbanding.

Correspondents say many of the fighters melted away with the worshippers as they left the shrine in the early afternoon.

An earlier peace agreement in June was short-lived. It remains to be seen whether Sadr's supporters will be back in the days and weeks ahead, said the BBC News Online.

A spokesman for the interim government, Qassen Daoud, said Sadr's supporters would be welcome to join the political process and Sadr would be allowed to remain free.

But pundits said reports claiming charred bodies found in the shrine - surfaced hours after the deal - raised a possibility that Sadr could be put on trial for ordering their killing possibly for refusing to keep fighting.

Also, the fate of figures kidnapped by the Mehdi Army militiamen is still cloaked in mystery, with no word about them in the "peace deal" that was struck in a record time, given the complexity and bloody nature of the three-week standoff.

Simmering tension between Sadr and the governor of Njaf, a reported enemy of Sadr and his followers, has not been also addressed, raising fears that an outbreak of violence is still a possibility if Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi did not change other officials involved in the standoff.

So, observers say, the peace deal on Njaf was an attempt to save faces after the Iraqi government realized that storming the Imam Ali shrine is a step too risky to take as it was certain to draw a wide public protest. Sadr militiamen were also pressurized to accept a settlement, especially with US and Iraqi forces closing in on the holy site.

To make chances for the deal to take hold even dimmer, there was no immediate word if the US military would accept the provisions on the deal calling on its forces to leave Najaf and Kufa.

In Washington, a senior Bush administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said only: "We've seen the developments. We're watching them very closely", according to The Associated Press.

The statements came as thick tension prevailed on the ground in Baghdad and areas in its vicinity Friday.

A gun battle between US forces and Iraqi fighters erupted Friday in central Baghdad's Haifa Street.

US troops sealed off the area and explosions could be heard as helicopter gunships circled overhead.