.US, Iraqi forces arrest Sadr aides in holy city
NAJAF, Iraq - A top aide and three supporters of Shia radical leader Moqtada Sadr were arrested in a pre-dawn swoop by US and Iraqi forces in the Shia holy city of Najaf Thursday, as part of a nationwide crackdown on sectarian violence.
Salah Al Obeidi, a close colleague of Sadr, was picked up from his home in Najaf along with cleric Bassim Al Ghuraifi, the radical leader’s office said.
Two others were also arrested, but their identities were not immediately known.
A spokesman for Sadr’s group in Baghdad, Hazem Al Aaraji, denied he was one of those arrested as reported earlier, but confirmed that security forces had surrounded his house in the Shia shrine district of Kadhimiyah.
“Military forces sealed off my house for three hours,” Aaraji told AFP, without specifying whether they were American or Iraqi.
Sadr’s representatives accused US forces of “carrying out arrests and seeking to destabilize regions where security prevails”.
“Americans want confrontation with Sadr because this movement is gaining in popularity. We are trying hard to avoid confrontation and to pursue other ways to resolve this issue,” Sheikh Abderrazzak Al Midawi said in Najaf.
“We think the US is pressuring us to withdraw a bill in parliament asking for a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq,” he told AFP.
Midawi said the group planned to hold a demonstration later Thursday in front of Obeidi’s house to “protest his arrest and demand his release.”
Sadr has 30 MPs among the 128 in the Shia alliance that leads the government.
A member of Sadr’s movement in Najaf, Sheikh Moayed al-Khazraji told reporters that the cleric had called for the crisis to be resolved “peacefully.”
“Sayyed Sadr is keen to avoid the shedding of Iraqi blood and calls for calm,” he said.
“We at Sadr’s office call for the crisis to be defused peacefully and not through military confrontations. We also call on MPs of the Sadr movement and others to intervene and stop these violations.”
The US military would neither confirm nor deny the arrests.
“We are carrying out continuous operations against individuals we believe are responsible for sectarian violence in the country,” US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson told AFP.
The military had confirmed on Wednesday that it had detained a number of fighters from Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia on suspicion of involvement in sectarian killings of Sunni Arabs over the past month.
“The majority of the individuals that we have captured that are tied to any one specific militia, Jaish Al Mahdi (the Mahdi Army) is certainly one of them,” said Major General Joseph Peterson, head of the Iraqi police training programme.
Those arrested were “promoting sectarian killings” he said.
Sadr has led two uprisings against US-led coalition troops in central and southern Iraq which saw hundreds of Mahdi Army fighters killed.
Sunni Arab politicians have repeatedly accused the militia of being behind revenge attacks against members of the minority community which dominated Saddam Hussein’s regime and all previous Iraqi governments.
Last week, Sunni politician Adnan Al Dulaimi said that militias close to factions in the main Shia bloc were leading the country to a “national disaster”.
“If strong measures are not taken soon, the country is going towards disaster and no one will be saved,” said Dulaimi, who heads the main Sunni Arab bloc in parliament.
“These well-known militias are pushing the country to the edge of catastrophe.”
Khaleej Times
Salah Al Obeidi, a close colleague of Sadr, was picked up from his home in Najaf along with cleric Bassim Al Ghuraifi, the radical leader’s office said.
Two others were also arrested, but their identities were not immediately known.
A spokesman for Sadr’s group in Baghdad, Hazem Al Aaraji, denied he was one of those arrested as reported earlier, but confirmed that security forces had surrounded his house in the Shia shrine district of Kadhimiyah.
“Military forces sealed off my house for three hours,” Aaraji told AFP, without specifying whether they were American or Iraqi.
Sadr’s representatives accused US forces of “carrying out arrests and seeking to destabilize regions where security prevails”.
“Americans want confrontation with Sadr because this movement is gaining in popularity. We are trying hard to avoid confrontation and to pursue other ways to resolve this issue,” Sheikh Abderrazzak Al Midawi said in Najaf.
“We think the US is pressuring us to withdraw a bill in parliament asking for a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq,” he told AFP.
Midawi said the group planned to hold a demonstration later Thursday in front of Obeidi’s house to “protest his arrest and demand his release.”
Sadr has 30 MPs among the 128 in the Shia alliance that leads the government.
A member of Sadr’s movement in Najaf, Sheikh Moayed al-Khazraji told reporters that the cleric had called for the crisis to be resolved “peacefully.”
“Sayyed Sadr is keen to avoid the shedding of Iraqi blood and calls for calm,” he said.
“We at Sadr’s office call for the crisis to be defused peacefully and not through military confrontations. We also call on MPs of the Sadr movement and others to intervene and stop these violations.”
The US military would neither confirm nor deny the arrests.
“We are carrying out continuous operations against individuals we believe are responsible for sectarian violence in the country,” US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson told AFP.
The military had confirmed on Wednesday that it had detained a number of fighters from Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia on suspicion of involvement in sectarian killings of Sunni Arabs over the past month.
“The majority of the individuals that we have captured that are tied to any one specific militia, Jaish Al Mahdi (the Mahdi Army) is certainly one of them,” said Major General Joseph Peterson, head of the Iraqi police training programme.
Those arrested were “promoting sectarian killings” he said.
Sadr has led two uprisings against US-led coalition troops in central and southern Iraq which saw hundreds of Mahdi Army fighters killed.
Sunni Arab politicians have repeatedly accused the militia of being behind revenge attacks against members of the minority community which dominated Saddam Hussein’s regime and all previous Iraqi governments.
Last week, Sunni politician Adnan Al Dulaimi said that militias close to factions in the main Shia bloc were leading the country to a “national disaster”.
“If strong measures are not taken soon, the country is going towards disaster and no one will be saved,” said Dulaimi, who heads the main Sunni Arab bloc in parliament.
“These well-known militias are pushing the country to the edge of catastrophe.”
Khaleej Times
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