Iraq's Sadr tells militia to keep observing freeze

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has ordered his Mehdi Army militia to maintain its six-month ceasefire, Sadr’s spokesman said on Thursday, while his militiamen clashed with Iraqi and U.S. soldiers.

Salah al-Ubaidi said the ceasefire, which expires later this month, should continue to be observed until militia members are told it is over or has been renewed.

Some members of Shi’ite cleric Sadr’s bloc are pressuring him not to extend August 29’s freeze on the feared Mehdi Army’s activities, which has been vital to cutting violence in Iraq.

Attacks across the country have fallen by 60 percent since June 2007 and a return to hostilities could seriously jeopardize those security gains.

“Any member of the Mehdi Army who conducts violent acts during the ceasefire, the Sadr office declares they will no longer be part of the Mehdi Army,” Sadr said in a statement read to Reuters by Ubaidi.

He said Sadr had issued the statement in response to rumors that the ceasefire was about to come to an end.

Ubaidi, one of the cleric’s most senior officials in the southern holy city of Najaf, declined to comment on whether the ceasefire would be extended when its six-month term lapses.

Amid signs of growing restlessness, Iraqi police said Mehdi Army fighters had clashed with Iraqi and U.S. soldiers early on Thursday in Sadr City, the sprawling Shi’ite slum in northeast Baghdad which is one of Sadr’s power bases.

Police said three people, including a woman and a child, were hurt in the clashes and 16 detained.

A U.S. military spokesman said one person was killed and another was injured when U.S. and Iraqi soldiers conducted raids “targeting criminal elements”.

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.

Mehdi Army fighters had often been involved in fierce clashes with U.S. troops or Sunni Arab groups, and the Pentagon once described it as the greatest single threat to peace in Iraq -- a term now it now uses for Sunni Islamist al Qaeda.

Sadr has been gauging the mood among senior figures about the ceasefire, Ubaidi told Reuters earlier this week.

Recent statements from within Sadr’s camp have indicated growing unease about the truce, with members claiming they are being targeted by Iraqi security forces.

U.S. commanders have said they are confident Sadr, the son of a revered Shi’ite cleric killed under Saddam Hussein, would extend the freeze, although U.S. and Iraqi forces continue to target “rogue” Mehdi Army units.