Mahdi Army may counter attack, despite freeze on activity (Roundup)

Aug 30, 2007, 15:13 GMT

Baghdad - The Mahdi Army is likely to counter any attack by US forces or any political powers targeting it, despite a six-month freeze on their activities imposed by their leader, Moqtada al-Sadr, a Sadrist source said Thursday.

'Freezing the Mahdi Army's activities entails no attacks against the US-led coalition forces in Iraq,' al-Sadr office director Kazmiya Hazem al-Araji said in press statements on Thursday.

However, al-Araji added: 'this doesn't entail self-defence, which is a legitimate right to the Mahdi Army.'

The Mahdi Army, also known as the Mahdi Militia or Jaish al-Mahdi, is an Iraqi paramilitary force created by al-Sadr, a Shiite cleric, in June 2003.

Al-Sadr on Wednesday ordered a halt on the activities of his Mahdi Army for six months and announced that the armed militia was to be restructured 'in a way that will maintain its ideology.'

His decision came after Mahdi Army militants were accused of engaging in armed clashes with Iraqi security forces in the holy city of Karbala from Monday to Wednesday, as well the attacks on Shiite Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) political party buildings across Iraq.

Fighting broke out Monday between militants and Iraqi security forces, ahead of the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims from all over Iraq in Karbala, 100 kilometres south of Baghdad.

The gathering was part of a key Shiite festival to commemorate the iconic Shiite Imam al-Mahdi.

Over 50 people were killed and hundreds were wounded in the clashes that lasted until Wednesday and resulted in the festival being cancelled. Karbala was evacuated and a curfew was imposed in the city.

Meanwhile, unidentified gunmen on Thursday set fire to two offices of the SIIC in the city of Hillah, while 16 militants were killed and 11 arrested in security operations in Baquba, reports said.

The SIIC buildings were torched in the neighbourhoods of ashimiyah and Qasim, the independent Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency reported, citing police sources.

No further details of the attack were immediately available.

Separately, an arson attack also targeted an office linked to a foundation headed by Ammar al-Hakim, the son of SIIC leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim who also heads the Shiite Unified Iraqi Coalition (UIC), the largest parliamentary bloc with a total of 113 seats in the 275-member parliament.

The attack is the latest in a series of strikes on SIIC offices in Iraq blamed on Mahdi Army militants.

Sadrist gunmen had on Wednesday stormed SIIC offices in the Hamza and Qasim neighbourhoods of Hillah, setting fires and breaking glass, security sources said.

At least six Iraqis were killed and four others wounded in clashes erupting shortly afterwards between Mahdi Army militants and SIIC members.

Militants also had Wednesday also set fire to a council office in Kufa, about 160 kilometres south of Baghdad, VOI quoted a council official as saying.

Al-Sadr on Wednesday urged his followers to refrain from attacking SIIC offices, but rather protect the headquarters of all political parties.

'We call on all Sadrists to observe self-restraint, to help security forces control the situation and arrest the perpetrators and sedition mongers,' a statement read out by al-Sadr's top aide al- Araji in the holy city of Najaf, said.

In other developments, joint Iraqi-US forces killed 16 gunmen and arrested 11 others since Wednesday in the north-east of Baghdad in Baquba, capital of Diyala province, VOI quoted the commander of Diyala operations as saying on Thursday.

In a first operation on Wednesday morning, 12 gunmen were killed and eight arrested, General Abdul Karim al-Rubaei told VOI.

About 24 hours later, four militants and one Iraqi soldier were killed and one Iraqi officer was injured, al-Rubaei said, adding that three gunmen were detained in the crackdown.

Several Katyusha rockets and mortar shells were seized, while a car bomb was defused during the two operations.

Diyala province has been the scene of a wide-scale security operation dubbed Arrowhead Ripper, which was launched two months ago to eliminate militants in the area. More than 10,000 Iraqi and US troops took part in the operation.

In Diyala on Wednesday, a US soldier involved in combat operations was killed in a blast near his vehicle in Diyala province, the US military in Iraq reported on Thursday.

No further details were immediately available.

US-led coalition forces meanwhile killed two suspected terrorist leaders and captured 29 suspects in raids across Iraq on Thursday, targeting the al-Qaeda terrorist network, the US military also said.