Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Media: AFP
Byline: Ammar Karim
Date: 17 October 2006
Body:
BAGHDAD, Oct 17, 2006 (AFP) - The Shiite movement loyal to radical cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr threatened on Tuesday to hold demonstrations in Baghdad, in
a new test to the authority of Iraq's beleaguered government.
Sadr's party reacted with fury to the alleged arrest of one of its top
officials, whom they said was seized overnight by US forces, and vowed to
stage protests in volatile west Baghdad, the scene of recent sectarian
violence.
The Sadr movement's military wing is the feared Mahdi Army, one of the
powerful militias which Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has promised to
disarm amid a rising wave of inter-communal bloodshed.
"The government is determined to fight the armed groups by all political or
military means," Maliki's cabinet office said Tuesday.
"It will not hesitate to strike whoever tries to violate the security of
the country and threaten the civil peace," the statement added.
Maliki's restatement of a long-standing promise to disarm Iraq's warring
political militias came amid mounting concern among his backers in the
United States that his government has failed to rise to the challenge.
"There is more to be done," White House spokesman Tony Snow said late
Monday in response to questions about the Iraqi government. "The violence
level is absolutely unacceptable, and it is important to make progress."
He stressed, however, that the president "believes that the prime minister
is doing everything in his power to do it."
The next big test for Maliki's willingness to face down Sadr's movement
could be triggered by the latest alleged arrest operation by US-led
coalition forces in the Shuala district of northeast Baghdad.
"US forces raided the home of Sheikh Mazen al-Saedi, head of the Sadr
movement offices in Karkh (west Baghdad) and arrested him," Hamdallah
al-Rikabi, a spokesman for Sadr's movement, told AFP.
"Five other members of the office were arrested as well in a series of
raids in Shuala," he said, referring to a Shiite neighborhood in northeast
Baghdad.
The coalition would not immediately comment on the claim, but in recent
weeks joint US and Iraqi raiding teams have been targeting alleged death
squad cells linked to Shiite militias in an effort to stem sectarian
murders.
"Sadr's office is preparing for an official massive demonstration tomorrow
in Karkh in which schools and some government departments will be
involved," Rikabi warned.
In addition to fielding several thousand armed Mahdi Army militiamen,
Sadr's movement also has 30 seats in parliament and controls three
ministries.
Meanwhile, violence continued in the war torn capital.
Insurgents detonated a suicide car bomb in the southern Baghdad suburb of
Saidiyah, killing two national police commandos and wounding nine people.
A mortar shell crashed into Wathiq Square in Baghdad's middle class Karrada
neighborhood, killing three people including a policeman and wounding seven
more, a security official said.
Iraq is in the grip of an astonishing spiral of sectarian violence.
Over the past four days scores of bodies have turned up in the streets of
Baghdad and scattered in the fields of rural areas north of the city as
Shiite and Sunni militias carry out murderous raids on each other's
communities.
At the same time, casualties are also mounting among the 142,000 US troops
still deployed in Iraq three-and-a-half years after the fall of Saddam
Hussein. At least 57 GIs were killed in the first 16 days of October.
Byline: Ammar Karim
Date: 17 October 2006
Body:
BAGHDAD, Oct 17, 2006 (AFP) - The Shiite movement loyal to radical cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr threatened on Tuesday to hold demonstrations in Baghdad, in
a new test to the authority of Iraq's beleaguered government.
Sadr's party reacted with fury to the alleged arrest of one of its top
officials, whom they said was seized overnight by US forces, and vowed to
stage protests in volatile west Baghdad, the scene of recent sectarian
violence.
The Sadr movement's military wing is the feared Mahdi Army, one of the
powerful militias which Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has promised to
disarm amid a rising wave of inter-communal bloodshed.
"The government is determined to fight the armed groups by all political or
military means," Maliki's cabinet office said Tuesday.
"It will not hesitate to strike whoever tries to violate the security of
the country and threaten the civil peace," the statement added.
Maliki's restatement of a long-standing promise to disarm Iraq's warring
political militias came amid mounting concern among his backers in the
United States that his government has failed to rise to the challenge.
"There is more to be done," White House spokesman Tony Snow said late
Monday in response to questions about the Iraqi government. "The violence
level is absolutely unacceptable, and it is important to make progress."
He stressed, however, that the president "believes that the prime minister
is doing everything in his power to do it."
The next big test for Maliki's willingness to face down Sadr's movement
could be triggered by the latest alleged arrest operation by US-led
coalition forces in the Shuala district of northeast Baghdad.
"US forces raided the home of Sheikh Mazen al-Saedi, head of the Sadr
movement offices in Karkh (west Baghdad) and arrested him," Hamdallah
al-Rikabi, a spokesman for Sadr's movement, told AFP.
"Five other members of the office were arrested as well in a series of
raids in Shuala," he said, referring to a Shiite neighborhood in northeast
Baghdad.
The coalition would not immediately comment on the claim, but in recent
weeks joint US and Iraqi raiding teams have been targeting alleged death
squad cells linked to Shiite militias in an effort to stem sectarian
murders.
"Sadr's office is preparing for an official massive demonstration tomorrow
in Karkh in which schools and some government departments will be
involved," Rikabi warned.
In addition to fielding several thousand armed Mahdi Army militiamen,
Sadr's movement also has 30 seats in parliament and controls three
ministries.
Meanwhile, violence continued in the war torn capital.
Insurgents detonated a suicide car bomb in the southern Baghdad suburb of
Saidiyah, killing two national police commandos and wounding nine people.
A mortar shell crashed into Wathiq Square in Baghdad's middle class Karrada
neighborhood, killing three people including a policeman and wounding seven
more, a security official said.
Iraq is in the grip of an astonishing spiral of sectarian violence.
Over the past four days scores of bodies have turned up in the streets of
Baghdad and scattered in the fields of rural areas north of the city as
Shiite and Sunni militias carry out murderous raids on each other's
communities.
At the same time, casualties are also mounting among the 142,000 US troops
still deployed in Iraq three-and-a-half years after the fall of Saddam
Hussein. At least 57 GIs were killed in the first 16 days of October.