Iraqi militias pledge to disarm if US confirms a withdrawal date

Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered most of his militiamen to disarm but said yesterday he will maintain elite fighting units to resist the Americans if a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops is not established.

The statement — read yesterday to worshippers during prayers in Baghdad’s former militia stronghold of Sadr City — is in line with details revealed earlier this week and appears to be an extension of plans he announced in June aimed at asserting more control over the militia.

“Weapons are to be exclusively in the hands of one group, the resistance group,” while another group called Momahidoun is to focus on social, religious and community work, Sadrist cleric Mudhafar al-Moussawi said.

He said the announcement was particularly aimed at members of al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia, which has been blamed for some of the worst violence against US troops and rival Sunni Arabs.

Thousands of worshippers streamed out into the streets after the Islamic service, burning an American flag and shouting: “No, no to America. No, no to occupation.”

The cleric has linked the reorganisation of the Mahdi Army to US-Iraqi negotiations over a long-term agreement that would extend the American presence in Iraq after a UN mandate expires at the end of the year. Al-Sadr and his followers want the deal to include a timeframe for a US withdrawal and have warned they may not suspend operations without such a clause.

Several cease-fires by al-Sadr have been key to a sharp decline in violence over the past year, along with a Sunni revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq and a US troop buildup. But American officials still consider his militiamen a threat and have backed the Iraqi military in operations to try to oust them from their power bases in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq.

The fighting cells will be “small and limited” and will only launch attacks under direct orders from al-Sadr in case of “dire necessity,” the cleric’s spokesman, Sheik Salah al-Obeidi said.

He also ruled out attacks on Iraqis and claimed Mahdi Army members had shown interest in making the programme a success.

“Now our stance is to watch the political developments and the security agreement. We will see if there will be a withdrawal timetable or not. We will wait for the results,” he said.

Two Iraqi officials close to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have said government and US negotiators are near an agreement on all US combat troops leaving Iraq by October 2010, with the last soldiers out three years after that. The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are ongoing. US officials, however, insisted no dates had been agreed.

“It’s premature to say what the aspiration goals and time horizons are going to be,” and a date for troop withdrawals will not be “plucked out of thin air,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said, speaking to reporters in Beijing yesterday where US President George W Bush is at the Olympics.