Iraq's Sadr expected to extend ceasefire

By Tim Cocks

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Powerful Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is widely expected to extend a ceasefire by his Mehdi Army militia on Friday, a decision Washington says is important to maintain security gains.

U.S. officials say the ceasefire, in operation for the past six months, has helped to sharply reduce attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops as well as tit-for-tat sectarian violence in Iraq.

Two senior officials from Sadr's movement told Reuters on Thursday he had issued a declaration calling for a six-month extension of the ceasefire and that this would be read out during Friday prayers at mosques affiliated with the cleric.

"The general idea is that there will be an extension," said one of the officials, declining to be named. "(Sadr) has distributed sealed envelopes to the imams of the mosques... They cannot be opened before (Friday)."

Many Mehdi Army members and Sadrist political leaders want to scrap the truce, saying it is being exploited by Iraqi and U.S. forces to arrest Sadrists, especially in southern Iraq, where rival Shi'ite factions are vying for dominance.

Sadr's spokesman Salah al-Ubaidi has said in the past the cleric would issue a statement by midnight on Saturday if he was renewing the truce. Silence would mean it was over.

The U.S. military blamed the Mehdi Army for fuelling a cycle of sectarian violence with Iraq's Sunni Arab minority in 2006 and 2007 and at one time called the militia the greatest single threat to peace in the country.

U.S. military commanders say violence in Iraq has dropped 60 percent since June 2007, owing to Sadr's ceasefire, 30,000 extra U.S. soldiers and a number of Sunni Arab leaders turning against al Qaeda.

Sadr called the ceasefire after deadly clashes between his militia, Iraqi forces and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, a rival Shi'ite faction, in the holy city of Kerbala.

Analysts say he decided on the truce to bring into line elements in the militia, some of whom had become involved in gangsterism and organized crime.

While praising Sadr for the truce, the U.S. military has pursued what it calls rogue elements of the Mehdi Army. It accuses Iran of arming these groups, a charge Tehran denies.

On Thursday, more than 1,000 Sadr supporters gathered in Baghdad's Sadr City slum, a Mehdi Army stronghold, to mark the fourth anniversary of his uprising against U.S. forces in 2004.

They marched through the streets carrying empty coffins to represent Mehdi army members killed in battles with U.S troops.

(Editing by Ralph Gowling)