Iraq cleric Sadr extends ceasefire for Mehdi militia

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr extended indefinitely a ceasefire for his Mehdi militia on Thursday and ordered his followers to protest peacefully against the U.S. occupation.

"The freezing of the Mehdi army is considered valid until further notice, and anyone who violates this order will not be considered part of the Mehdi army," Sadr said in a handwritten statement read by senior aide Hazim al-Araji in the cleric's offices in the southern holy Shi'ite city of Najaf.

The influential anti-American cleric has issued orders curtailing and redefining the activities of his Mehdi Army fighters after Iraqi government and U.S. forces defeated them in Baghdad and the southern city of Basra this year.

Sadr said earlier this month he would dissolve the militia if U.S. troops start withdrawing from Iraq according to a fixed timetable -- something Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has sought in negotiations with Washington.

In June, Sadr decreed that only a select group of the Mehdi Army, named after the revered 9th Century Shi'ite Imam Mehdi, would be authorized to battle U.S. forces in Iraq.

He commanded the bulk of his followers instead to work against western cultural, social and religious domination.

Those orders followed Sadr's move a year ago to freeze the militia's activities for six months on the heels of gunbattles among rival Shi'ite factions that killed dozens of people in the holy city of Kerbala. He extended the ceasefire for another six months in February of this year.

Those ceasefires are widely seen to have contributed to a dramatic drop in violence across Iraq.

But there are doubts over the degree of control the reclusive cleric, who is believed to be hiding in the Iranian city of Qom as he pursues Islamic studies, truly wields over the militia.

The United States has turned its focus to rogue members of the Mehdi army, which it calls 'special groups' and which it blames for sophisticated attacks on U.S. and Iraqi soldiers, included the use of lethal armor-piercing bombs.

Sadr also called on followers to turn to non-violent protest against the U.S. presence in Iraq.

"The first Friday of Ramadan every year will be devoted to rejecting and condemning the occupation by peaceful means," he said in the statement.

"After Friday prayers, we will go out we will reject, we will condemn the American occupation."

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed and Khaled Farhan; writing by Missy Ryan; Editing by Angus MacSwan)