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Muqtada al-Sadr's surprise decision to stand down his Mahdi Army for up to six months was designed to stop a Shiite-Shiite rift from spiraling out of control and to weed out infiltrators in his militia's ranks, according to aides of the radical Shiite cleric. Al-Sadr issued his surprise declaration last Wednesday following two days of deadly clashes in the holy city of Karbala between his Mahdi Army and the rival Badr militia of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, the country's largest Shiite party and a U.S. partner. Involvement in inter-Shiite fighting has hurt the image of al-Sadr and his Mahdi...

Wednesday, August 29, 2007 BAGHDAD — Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered a six-month suspension of activities by his Mahdi Army militia in order to reorganize the force, and it will no longer attack U.S. and coalition troops, aides said Wednesday. The aide, Sheik Hazim al-Araji, said on Iraqi state television that the goal was to "rehabilitate" the organization, which has reportedly broken into factions, some of which the U.S. maintains are trained and supplied by Iran. "We declare the freezing of the Mahdi Army without exception in order to rehabilitate it in a way that will safeguard its ideological...

Al-Sadr suspends militia activity in Iraq By DAVID RISING, Associated Press Writer BAGHDAD - Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered a six-month suspension of activities by his Mahdi Army militia in order to reorganize the force, and it will no longer attack U.S. and coalition troops, aides said Wednesday. The aide, Sheik Hazim al-Araji, said on Iraqi state television that the goal was to "rehabilitate" the organization, which has reportedly broken into factions, some of which the U.S. maintains are trained and supplied by Iran. "We declare the freezing of the Mahdi Army without exception in order to rehabilitate it...

BAGHDAD - A Muslim imam dropped his cloak to the sidewalk. It was a signal for the gunmen to move. They surrounded the top Iraqi security official in a north Baghdad district. Iraqi military vehicles — commandeered by other Shiite militiamen — screeched into a cordon, blocking his exit. A gun was put to his head. Brig. Gen. Falah Hassan Kanbar, a fellow Shiite, managed to escape when his bodyguards pulled him into a vehicle that sped down an alley. Details of the Aug. 5 ambush emerged this week in interviews with Kanbar, U.S. military and intelligence officials. It remains...

U.S. commander says Iraqi cleric Sadr in Iran Aug 10, 2007 Powerful Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is in Iran and not in complete control of the militia that owe allegiance to him, the U.S. commander in Sadr's main stronghold in Baghdad said on Friday. "I think he is now in Iran so just based on his location that implies that some of his control is not direct," Colonel John Castles said in a video conference from Baghdad with journalists in Washington. Castles is in command of U.S. forces responsible for Sadr City, the vast Shi'ite slum named for Sadr's...

An Iraqi man arrested this month at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport for immigration law violations was charged Wednesday with lying to authorities about his travels outside the United States and about anti-American material he was carrying. When Ali Mohammed Abboud Almosaleh, 40, arrived at the airport on a flight from Amsterdam July 7, he told customs officers he had been out of the country for one month and had traveled to Syria, court documents said. But he actually had been gone for five months and had visited Iraq. He told officers that his digital video discs with images of...

Karbala raid leads to pitched battle; five more members of Iranian-backed cells captured in separate raids While al Qaeda in Iraq has been identified as the primary enemy by the U.S. military leadership in Iraq, Coalition and Iraq security forces have aggressively pursued the Iranian-backed "rogue" elements of the Mahdi Army and the Special Groups. Over the past two days, Iraqi security forces, backed by U.S. Special Forces advisors, conducted two raids against the Shia terror groups in Karbala and Baghdad, while another Coalition-led raid occurred in Diyala province. The Karbala raid sparked a large firefight, which resulted in 17...

US troops battle Kerbala militia The US military usually stays out of the holy city of Kerbala Clashes between Shia militiamen and a joint US-Iraqi force have left nine people dead in an Iraqi holy city.Around 23 people were wounded in the fighting in Kerbala as US and Iraqi troops carried out a pre-dawn raid. Shooting began as the US-Iraqi force moved in to arrest figures from the Mehdi Army, which is loyal to the radical cleric Moqtada Sadr. South-central Iraq has been riven by battles between rival Shia militias and US and Iraqi forces in recent months. Several...

The drumbeat dirge of defeatist diatribe pounds on loudly, as the humid torpor of summer descends on The District of Columbia. Everyone there believes we have no hope of winning Iraq. At least we have no hope of winning their in time to make this issue conveniently go away between now and the next election. As a result, Congress now wants to wash its hands of Mr. Bush’s War. The national media fully supports an immediate pullout, without serious regard for the consequent slaughter that would break loose in the aftermath of our shameful retreat. The New York Times editorial...

Sadr attacks Iraq PM in Shia rift Moqtada Sadr (left) and Nouri Maliki used to be allies Iraqi Shia leaders linked to the radical cleric, Moqtada Sadr, have attacked their former government ally, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.They accused Mr Maliki of bowing to US demands and sanctioning US attacks on Mr Sadr's Mehdi Army militia. Mr Maliki has said the militia must purge its ranks of criminals. Dozens of people have died in recent fighting between Iraqi forces and Mehdi Army militiamen, amid signs of a growing rift between the Shia groups. In April, six cabinet ministers loyal to...

Moqtada al-Sadr has recently accused Iran of assisting Al-Qaeda. Could this be the latest signs of a breakup between the Shia cleric and his allies across the border? In our last post at ITM we briefly mentioned a statement in which Sadr’s office accused Iran of hosting and assisting al-Qaeda, today I’ll talk about that statement in more detail. The claim itself is not strange. What’s strange is whom it came from. Sadr was the last voice we’d expect to say such a thing. Accusing Iran of interfering in Iraq’s affairs is one thing, but accusing it of hosting and...

Violence in Baghdad and greater Iraq remains low as the Iraqi government is enforcing a curfew in the major population centers where the threat of sectarian backlash from the Samarra mosque bombing remains high. There have been one confirmed report of a mosque attack and no major clashes on the streets. A Sunni mosque in Basra was destroyed on Friday, and a curfew is now in place in the city. The Iraqi Security Forces, along with a Coalition advisory team, have deployed an additional 650 soldiers and police to Samarra, including "Approximately 300 Iraqi Army soldiers from 4th Battalion, 1st...

Unidentified armed men blew up two mosques on Thursday morning north of the city of Hilla and set a third mosque ablaze, a police source said."Unknown gunmen broke into al-Mustafa and the Tunis mosques at dawn, planted bombs inside and blew them up, while an armed group set the Hateen mosque, which was only partly destroyed, ablaze today," the source, who asked not to be named, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).Al-Mustafa and Hateen mosques are located in Iskandariyah district, 50 km north of Hilla, and the Tunis mosque is located in al-Mahaweel district, 16 km north...

In the past 10 days, the fiery Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia has resurfaced in force, making a push to roust Sunnis from Baghdad and to isolate Sunni enclaves in the west of the capital from their brethren in the south. Mahdi Army militiamen in the Shiite dominated neighborhood of Bayaa were reinforced by other Shiite fighters and men in civilian clothes with weapons have cordoned off the area. In the past 10 days Mahdi Army activity has escalated, intensifying in the past two days with the capture of two Sunni mosques, residents and police said. The push appears to...

After more than 14 weeks in hiding in Iran, Moqtada al-Sadr returned to Iraq last week. The question before Iraq now is, “Has he returned from Iran stronger than he was before he left?” Given the combination of SIIC leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim’s [wiki] absence from the Shia political scene, the training Sadr received in Iran, and the timing Tehran chose for his return, Moqtada al-Sadr has obviously returned strong. Strong enough to summon seven Iraqi governors to meet him and listen to his instructions about how they should run their respective provinces in central and southern Iraq at the...

Mahdi Army rocket team killed in helicopter, ground strikes as operations increase in Muqtada’s stronghold in Baghdad The return of Muqtada al Sadr from his four months of self imposed exile in Iran has led to a spike in activity against his political leadership and the extremist elements of his fractured Mahdi Army. Over the past few days, U.S. and Iraqi forces have conducted multiple operations in Sadr City, and over the past 24 hours, killed 4 Mahdi fighters and captured 6 after attacking a rocket team in the northeastern district. On Saturday and Sunday, U.S. and Iraqi forces conducted...

As U.S. jets roared overhead, Mahdi Army militiamen on Sunday battled with Iraqi troops and local police searching for two militia leaders in the southern city of Diwaniyah. At least three people were killed and 24 wounded, official Iraqi sources reported. The southern clashes came just hours after American helicopter gunships attacked targets in Mahdi Army-dominated Shiite east Baghdad, killing four suspected militants, the U.S. military reported, as the radical Shiite militia faced growing pressure to bow to central government authority. London's Sunday Times, quoting an unidentified senior Iraqi government official, said al-Sadr's representatives were demanding an end to assassination...

The Awakening movement, which was started in Anbar province by local tribes and Sunni insurgents that opposed al Qaeda's attempts to Talibanize Iraqi society, has now spread to all of the provinces bordering Baghdad. Over the past month, Awakening movements formed in Diyala and Salahadin, and, this week, the Babil Awakening was formed. Al Qaeda in Iraq immediately targeted the leader of the Babil Awakening, Sheikh Obeid Al-Masoud, seriously wounding him and his wife in the city of Iskandaria. Al Qaeda is working to destroy the nascent Awakening movements in the provinces, where they provide a political and ideological alternative...

Shiite Cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is reported to be keen to put a new face to his movement already embroiled in sectarian revenge and death squads. Since his resurfacing following nearly four months of absence from Iraqi political scene, the young and charismatic Shiite leader has held several meetings with his aides to “restructure the movement whose ranks has been infiltrated by enemies,” officials close to the cleric said. Speaking on condition of anonymity, they said Sadr’s sudden emergence and his meetings have been prompted by the defection of one of his most senior aides, former Health Minister Ali al-Shammari. Shammari,...

US and British forces on Saturday clashed with Moqtada al-Sadr's supporters in Baghdad and Basra, even as Iraq's politicians cautiously welcomed the radical Shiite cleric's return to the political scene. US-led forces seized a suspected militant with ties to Iran and killed five others in an early morning raid in the cleric's Mahdi Army stronghold of Sadr City, the US military said. The man detained had been "acting as a proxy for an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps officer," and smuggling armour-piercing bombs to local militias, it charged in a statement. It added that five people were killed in an air...