Al-Sadr threatens to end cease-fire

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer
45 minutes ago



BAGHDAD - Anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr threatened to lift a six-month cease-fire by the end of the week, officials said Wednesday — a move that could send his Shiite militia fighters back out on the streets and jeopardize recent security gains that have led to a sharp decline in violence.


Iraqi police, meanwhile, held funerals Wednesday for 14 officers killed the night before as they responded to a rocket attack launched from a predominantly Shiite neighborhood against U.S. bases in the capital.

In a separate attack, three American troops were killed by a roadside bomb Tuesday night in northwestern Baghdad, the U.S. military said. Their names were not released.

Al-Sadr's Shiite Mahdi Army is among the most powerful militias in Iraq, and the cease-fire he ordered last August has been credited with helping reduce violence around Iraq by 60 percent or more in the past six months.

Sheik Salah al-Obeidi, a spokesman for al-Sadr in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, said that if the cleric failed to issue a statement by Saturday saying that the cease-fire was extended, "then that means the freeze is over." Al-Sadr's followers would be free to resume attacks.

Al-Obeidi said that message "has been conveyed to all Mahdi Army members nationwide."

The threat was confirmed by another al-Sadr official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The U.S. military has welcomed the cease-fire, saying it is a major factor in the sharp decline in violence. But it has insisted on continuing to stage raids against what it calls Iranian-backed breakaway factions of the Mahdi Army militia — moved that have angered the cleric's followers.

Influential members of al-Sadr's movement said earlier this month they had urged the radical cleric to call off the cease-fire, which was initially set to expire at the end of the month.

Al-Sadr's followers have claimed the U.S.-Iraqi raids, particularly in the southern Shiite cities of Diwaniyah, Basra and Karbala, are a pretext to crack down on the wider movement, which has pulled its support for the Washington-backed government.

No one has claimed responsibility for Tuesday's rocket attack, the second in as many days, but in both cases the explosives apparently were launched from Shiite militia strongholds in the capital, underscoring the fragility of the truce.

The blast that killed the Iraqis occurred after police, acting on a tip, discovered rockets primed for firing behind a deserted ice factory.

A band played Wednesday as four pick-up trucks carried the coffins of the slain police in a slow-moving funeral procession. Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani walked with other officials at the back of the line.

Brig. Gen. Jihad al-Jubouri, head of the anti-bombing squad at the Interior Ministry, said the blast killed 11 bomb experts and three other officers.

A dust storm that has gripped much of Iraq for the last two days kept police from identifying a booby trap that set off the initial explosion, he said. The storms, which shut down the capital's airport and sent dozens of Baghdad residents to hospitals with breathing difficulties, were expected to abate Thursday.

Officials had initially said that as many as 15 police were slain and up to 27 wounded.

Four U.S. soldiers were wounded in Tuesday's rocket attack against their outposts in the capital, the military said.

On Monday, a rocket volley landed on an Iraqi housing complex near the Baghdad international airport and a nearby U.S. military base, killing at least five people and wounding 16, including two U.S. soldiers, officials said.

The attacks have been among the most intense to strike the capital in weeks as violence has declined sharply with an influx of some 30,000 U.S. troops, a Sunni revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq and al-Sadr's cease-fire.

In yet more violence, Samir al-Attar, deputy minister of Iraq's Ministry of Science and Technology, was wounded Wednesday when two roadside bombs detonated near his convoy about a minute apart as he was driving through Baghdad, according to police and ministry officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't allowed to release the information.

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Associated Press writer Sinan Salaheddin contributed to this report.