Internal pressure grows on Iraq's Sadr to end truce

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - Influential members within the movement loyal to Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have told him they do not want his Mehdi Army militia to extend a ceasefire when it expires this month, Sadr's spokesman said on Monday.

The U.S. military says the Shi'ite cleric's announcement on August 29 to freeze the activities of the feared Mehdi Army for six months has been vital to cutting violence. A return to hostilities could seriously jeopardize those security gains.

Sadr has been gauging the mood among senior figures and five main committees had reported back with their views on the truce, Sadr's spokesman Salah al-Ubaidi, one of the cleric's senior officials in the southern holy city of Najaf, told Reuters.

Ubaidi said one of those committees, made up of Sadrist legislators in Baghdad, had recommended not renewing the ceasefire, citing problems with the authorities in Diwaniya, 180 km (112 miles) south of Baghdad.

"The parliament committee said they don't want the ceasefire to remain. They want it lifted because of oppressive acts by security forces in Diwaniya," he said without elaborating.

Recent statements from Sadr's camp have indicated growing unhappiness that followers were being targeted by Iraqi forces.

Ubaidi said he was not authorized to say what the four other committees, representing political and media groups, provincial offices and imams, had recommended.

He said Sadr would issue a statement around February 23 if he had agreed to extend the ceasefire, declared following clashes between his supporters and police during a pilgrimage in the southern city of Kerbala. Silence would mean it was over.

"Either he will announce the extension of the freeze or he won't say anything. If he keeps silent, that means the freeze has come to an end," Ubaidi said, without saying exactly how it would be known the truce had formally ended.

Sadr, who led two uprisings against U.S. forces in 2004, ordered the Mehdi Army to observe the ceasefire so he could reorganize the splintered militia. Up to then, Mehdi Army fighters were often involved in fierce clashes with U.S. troops or violence with Sunni Arab groups.

The Pentagon once described the militia as the greatest threat to peace in Iraq, a term now reserved for Sunni Islamist al Qaeda in Iraq.

An extended ceasefire by the Mehdi Army is seen as key to maintaining security gains in Iraq, where attacks have fallen by 60 percent since the middle of last year.

Brigadier-General Joseph Anderson, chief of staff for the Multi-National Corps-Iraq, said last Friday he was confident Sadr would recommit to the freeze on hostilities.

Although violence has fallen, the U.S. military says it has continued to target "rogue" Mehdi Army units.

Sadr, son of a revered Shi'ite cleric killed under Saddam Hussein, draws support from poor urban Shi'ites and has wide influence in the Shi'ite south and parts of Baghdad.

His followers have been battling for control of southern Iraq and its oil wealth with his main Shi'ite rival, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, headed by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.

(Additional reporting by Aseel Kami; Writing by Michael Holden, Editing by Dean Yates and Matthew Jones)