Al-Sadr issues 'final warning' over Iraq crackdown
4/20/2008 - 10:22:10 AMShiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr issued a “final warning” to the Iraqi government to halt the US-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 US-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 website 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 the 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 US has identified as the gravest threat to a democratic Iraq.
Prime Minister Nouri 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 hit 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.”
US officials have acknowledged that al-Sadr’s truce was 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 US-protected Green Zone, killing at least four Americans. US officials claim many of the rockets fired at the Green Zone were manufactured in Iran.
The Iranians helped mediate a truce on March 30, which eased clashes in Basra and elsewhere in the Shiite south. But fighting persisted in Baghdad as US 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 north-east Baghdad.
At a press conference today, Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad Hassan Kazemi Qomi 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.”
Yesterday, a Washington-based group that monitors Islamic extremists said al Qaida in Iraq had announced a one-month offensive against US troops.
The SITE group said the announcement was made on websites by the leader of al Qaida in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who took over the extremist group after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a US air strike in 2006.
In Sadr City, at least 14 people were killed and 84 wounded in yesterday’s fighting, police and hospital officials said.
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 south east of Baghdad, Iraqi soldiers backed by British soldiers 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 Major Tom Holloway.
Last month, Iraqi troops met fierce resistance when they tried to enter Hayaniyah. Today, however, Iraqi soldiers moved block by block, searching homes, seizing weapons and detaining suspects.
General Ali Ghaidan said he expected the whole area to be secured by today.
The fighting in both Basra and Baghdad is part of a campaign by Mr 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.