Control Congress is a multi-partisan, issue-oriented political forum that brings together the Left, Right, and everyone in between.

Anti-US cleric al-Sadr threatens new uprising in Iraq

Who is in charge?

HP-BAGHDAD — Anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr gave a “final warning” to the government Saturday to halt a U.S.-Iraqi crackdown against his followers or he would declare “open war until liberation.”

A full-blown uprising by al-Sadr, who led two rebellions against U.S.-led forces in 2004, could lead to a dramatic increase in violence in Iraq at a time when the Sunni extremist group al-Qaida in Iraq appears poised for new attacks after suffering severe blows last year.

Al-Sadr’s warning appeared on his Web site as Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government claimed success in a new push against Shiite militants in the southern city of Basra. Fighting claimed 14 more lives in Sadr City, the Baghdad stronghold of al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.

Fighting in Sadr City and the crackdown in Basra are part of a government campaign against followers of al-Sadr and Iranian-backed Shiite splinter groups that the U.S. has identified as the gravest threat to a democratic Iraq.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, also a Shiite, has ordered al-Sadr to disband the Mahdi Army, Iraq’s biggest Shiite militia, or face a ban from politics.

In the statement, al-Sadr lashed back, accusing the government of selling out to the Americans and branding his followers as criminals.

Al-Sadr, who is believed to be in Iran, said he had tried to defuse tensions last August by declaring a unilateral truce, only to see the government respond by closing his offices and “resorting to assassinations.”

“So I am giving my final warning … to the Iraqi government … to take the path of peace and abandon violence against its people,” al-Sadr said. “If the government does not refrain … we will declare an open war until liberation.”

Al-Sadr’s statements came as al-Qaida in Iraq announced a one-month offensive against U.S. troops. In a new audiotape released on a militant Web site, a man claiming to be the purported leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, called on followers to attack U.S. soldiers and members of awakening councils, Sunni Arab tribesmen and former insurgents who changed sides and are now fighting al-Qaida.

A week of violence has raised concerns that suspected Sunni insurgents are regrouping in the north. U.S. and Iraqi troops have stepped up security operations in Mosul, believed to be one of the last urban strongholds of al-Qaida in Iraq.

U.S. officials say the awakening councils and al-Sadr’s truce were instrumental in reducing violence last year. But the truce is in tatters after Iraqi forces launched an offensive last month against “criminal gangs and militias” in the southern city of Basra.

The conflict spread rapidly to Baghdad, where Shiite militiamen based in Sadr City fired rockets at the U.S.-protected Green Zone, killing at least four Americans. U.S. officials say many of the rockets fired at the Green Zone were manufactured in Iran.

The Iranians helped mediate a truce March 30, which eased clashes in Basra and elsewhere in the Shiite south. But fighting persisted in Baghdad as U.S. and Iraqi forces sought to push militiamen beyond the range where they could fire rockets and mortars at the Green Zone.

The Americans are attempting to seal off much of Sadr City, home to an estimated 2.5 million people, and have used helicopter gunships and Predator drones to fire missiles at militiamen seeking refuge in the sprawling slum of northeast Baghdad.

At a news conference Saturday, Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad said his government supports the Iraqi move against “lawbreakers in Basra” but that the “insistence of the Americans to lay siege” to Sadr City “is a mistake.”

“Lawbreakers (in Basra) must be held accountable … but the insistence of the Americans to lay siege to millions of people in a specific area and then bombing them randomly from air and damaging property is not correct,” Ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qomi said.

Qomi warned that the American strategy in Sadr City “will lead to negative results for which the Iraqi government must bear responsibility.”

At least 14 people were killed and 84 wounded in Saturday’s fighting in Sadr City, police and hospital officials said. Sporadic clashes were continuing after sundown, with gunmen darting through the streets, firing at Iraqi police and soldiers who have taken the lead in the fighting.

The U.S. military said its forces in Sadr City killed seven “criminals” _ two in gunbattles and five in two separate airstrikes. The military said it does not engage if civilians are spotted in the area.

According to the Interior Ministry, at least 280 Iraqis have been killed in Sadr City fighting since March 25, including gunmen, security forces and civilians.

In Basra, Iraq’s second largest city about 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, Iraqi soldiers backed by British troops pushed their way into Hayaniyah, the local stronghold of al-Sadr’s Mahdi militia.

As the operation got under way, British cannons and American warplanes pounded an empty field near Hayaniyah as a show of force “intended to demonstrate the firepower available to the Iraqi forces,” said British military spokesman Maj. Tom Holloway.

Last month, Iraqi troops met fierce resistance when they tried to enter Hayaniyah. On Saturday, however, Iraqi soldiers moved block by block, searching homes, seizing weapons and detaining suspects.

Lt. Gen. Ali Ghaidan said he expected the whole area to be secured by Sunday. He said troops had detained a number of suspects but refused to give details until the area was cleared.

The fighting in both Basra and Baghdad is part of a campaign by al-Maliki, a Shiite, to break the power of Shiite militias, especially al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, and improve security in southern Iraq before provincial elections this fall.

Al-Sadr’s followers believe the campaign is aimed at weakening their movement to prevent it from winning provincial council seats at the expense of Shiite parties that work with the United States in the national government.

Tensions between the Sadrists and other Shiite parties have been rising for months before the Basra crackdown and escalated after parliament last month approved a new law governing the provincial elections.

Clashes also broke out near Nasiriyah, a Shiite city about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, leaving at least 22 people dead, police said. A curfew was clamped on the town of Suq al-Shiyoukh, where the fighting broke out between police and al-Sadr’s followers.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military said an American soldier was killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol in Salahuddin province. The military did not release the soldier’s name, pending notification of family.

The military also said Saturday that an Army Special Forces soldier was killed by a burst of small-arms fire while trying to capture an al-Qaida leader in an Iraqi town.

Staff Sgt. Jason L. Brown, 29, was killed early Thursday during a combat operation in Sama Village, the U.S. Army Special Operations Command said in a statement.

At least 4,039 members of the U.S. military have now died since the war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Posted by JohnKonop on Monday, April 21st, 2008 at 1:05 am | under Uncategorized | |RSS 2.0 feed | Comments and pings closed. |

One Response to “Anti-US cleric al-Sadr threatens new uprising in Iraq”

  1. JohnKonop says:
    April 21, 2008 at 6:37 am

    Al-Sadr’s followers refuse to disband militia in Iraq

    HP-

    Followers of hardline cleric Muqtada al-Sadr raised the stakes Sunday in the showdown with Iraq’s government, refusing to disband their militia. The U.S. military said 40 Shiite militants were killed in fierce fighting in southern Iraq.

    Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, meanwhile, assured visiting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that he will not back down in his confrontation with Shiite militias, even as mortar shells fired from Shiite areas struck the U.S.-protected Green Zone.

    In a sign of that resolve, Iraqi soldiers took control Sunday of the last stronghold of al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia in the southern city of Basra, where an Iraqi offensive last month triggered the current wave of Shiite fighting.

    Al-Maliki, a Shiite, has demanded that al-Sadr disband his Mahdi Army, the country’s biggest Shiite militia, or his followers will not be allowed to run in provincial elections this fall.

    Al-Sadr’s followers, who control 30 of the 275 parliament seats, rejected that demand Sunday and instead called for an end to U.S.-Iraqi military operations in Sadr City, the Baghdad stronghold of the Mahdi Army, and Shula, another Shiite district of the capital.

    “All must know that disbanding the Mahdi Army means the end of al-Maliki’s government,” Sadrist lawmaker Fawzi Akram told reporters.

    He called the government campaign against the Mahdi Army a “filthy military and media campaign” planned and supported by the Americans. He urged the United Nations, non-governmental organizations and human rights groups to intervene.

    “Random airstrikes, killings and bloodletting will not help but rather will increase hatred and enmity,” he said, adding that if operations continue “all options are open for us.”

    That could include the formal scrapping of a unilateral truce al-Sadr called last August _ a move that American officials credit with helping dramatically reduce violence over the last year.

    Since the Basra crackdown began March 25, that truce is in tatters, with fighting in the Baghdad area and scattered clashes still under way throughout the Shiite south.

    The U.S. military announced Sunday that U.S.-backed Iraqi soldiers killed 40 militiamen and arrested 40 more in fighting this weekend near Nasiriyah, a Shiite city 200 miles southeast of Baghdad.

    A U.S. statement said the fighting broke out Saturday when “criminal militia members” attacked Iraqi security forces. Iraqi troops with U.S. special operations advisers counterattacked the militiamen in a local Sadrist office, where they found various weapons including Iranian-made penetrator bombs, the statement said.

    Al-Sadr accused U.S. and Iraqi forces of “murdering” the “faithful brothers” by “brutal means” in the Nasiriyah fighting and demanded an investigation.

    The anti-American cleric has accused the government of exploiting his August truce to crack down on his political movement and warned Saturday that he would declare “open war” if the campaign against him did not stop.

    Al-Sadr’s statement was broadcast in Sadr City on mosque loudspeakers, raising fears of more bloodshed among the district’s 2.5 million people.

    In the latest fighting, U.S. soldiers killed 12 militants Sunday in a series of engagements in Shiite areas of Baghdad, the military said.

    Nine of them died after gunmen attacked a U.S. checkpoint in Sadr City with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortar shells, military spokesman Lt. Col. Steve Stover said. There was no report of U.S. casualties.

    The deaths were in addition to seven armed “criminals” reported killed by the military on Saturday in Sadr City _ two in gunbattles and five in two separate airstrikes.

    Iraqi police and hospital officials also said six civilians _ four men and two boys ages 8 and 10 _ died in fighting in Sadr City after midnight.

    “There was an uptick in violence in comparison with the past couple of weeks,” Stover said. “We’re not looking for a fight but what we are doing is protecting the Iraqi people.”

    A full-scale uprising by al-Sadr, who led two rebellions against U.S.-led forces in 2004, could lead to a dramatic increase in violence in Iraq, threatening the security gains since President Bush ordered nearly 30,000 U.S. reinforcements to Iraq early last year.

    Nevertheless, al-Sadr appears increasingly isolated politically, as major Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish parties have rallied behind al-Maliki in his showdown with the militias.

    Even Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad has thrown his support behind the crackdown against “lawbreakers” in Basra, while deploring U.S. military operations against the Shiite militants in Sadr City.

    U.S. officials believe Iran provides weapons and training to the militias, despite Iranian denials.

    Rice told reporters she sees signs that the campaign has brought sectarian and ethnic groups together in an unprecedented way, and she said she wants to capitalize on it.

    She said al-Maliki’s government “has made a choice to pursue militias and is willing to bear the consequences.”

    That broad support _ especially from the Iranians _ may have accounted for the ease with which Iraqi soldiers entered the last Mahdi Army stronghold in Basra this weekend. Last month, Iraqi soldiers faced fierce resistance in the Hayaniyah district, but on Sunday officials declared the area under government control.

    Iraq soldiers were seen Sunday setting up bases and checkpoints to establish a permanent security presence. Lt. Gen. Ali Ghaidan, a commander of the operation, said troops had recovered large caches of weapons during door-to-door searches.

    Al-Sadr’s followers believe the campaign is aimed at weakening their movement to prevent it from winning provincial council seats at the expense of Shiite parties that work with the United States in the national government.

    However, the U.S. military insists the campaign is not aimed at the mainstream Sadrist movement but against criminals and Iranian-backed splinter groups.

    “We’ve made it very clear that the Mahdi Army itself … is not the enemy,” said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, which controls a large region south of the capital. “The enemy is Sunni extremists, Shiite extremists and Iranian influence.”

|