Al-Sadr aide gunned down

A senior aide to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr was today assassinated in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf.

Authorities immediately announced a city-wide curfew and security forces were deployed on the streets.

A police officer and a local Sadrist official said Riyadh al-Nouri, the director of al-Sadr’s office in Najaf, was gunned down as he drove home after attending Friday prayers in the nearby city of Kufa.

Al-Sadr has his headquarters in Najaf, but the shrines in that city are dominated by a rival Shiite group and most of his followers are concentrated in Kufa.

Al-Sadr blamed the United States and its allied Iraqi government and promised not to “forget this precious blood” in a statement issued by his office. But he urged his followers to “be patient.”