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Wednesday, August 29, 2007 BAGHDAD — Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered a six-month suspension of activities by his Mahdi Army militia in order to reorganize the force, and it will no longer attack U.S. and coalition troops, aides said Wednesday. The aide, Sheik Hazim al-Araji, said on Iraqi state television that the goal was to "rehabilitate" the organization, which has reportedly broken into factions, some of which the U.S. maintains are trained and supplied by Iran. "We declare the freezing of the Mahdi Army without exception in order to rehabilitate it in a way that will safeguard its ideological...

Al-Sadr suspends militia activity in Iraq By DAVID RISING, Associated Press Writer BAGHDAD - Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered a six-month suspension of activities by his Mahdi Army militia in order to reorganize the force, and it will no longer attack U.S. and coalition troops, aides said Wednesday. The aide, Sheik Hazim al-Araji, said on Iraqi state television that the goal was to "rehabilitate" the organization, which has reportedly broken into factions, some of which the U.S. maintains are trained and supplied by Iran. "We declare the freezing of the Mahdi Army without exception in order to rehabilitate it...

Karbala raid leads to pitched battle; five more members of Iranian-backed cells captured in separate raids While al Qaeda in Iraq has been identified as the primary enemy by the U.S. military leadership in Iraq, Coalition and Iraq security forces have aggressively pursued the Iranian-backed "rogue" elements of the Mahdi Army and the Special Groups. Over the past two days, Iraqi security forces, backed by U.S. Special Forces advisors, conducted two raids against the Shia terror groups in Karbala and Baghdad, while another Coalition-led raid occurred in Diyala province. The Karbala raid sparked a large firefight, which resulted in 17...

BAGHDAD – Iraqi Army Soldiers, with U.S. Special Forces as advisors, detained a cell leader of the rogue Jaysh al-Mahdi militia near the southwest neighborhood of Bayaa in Baghdad, July 26. The Iraqi Soldiers detained their primary suspect without incident during the early morning operation in Baghdad. The primary suspect is believed to command a rogue JAM improvised explosive device cell that is allegedly responsible for attacks on Coalition Forces. He is also alleged to have received financial support and explosively formed penetrators from Iran, which were distributed to other JAM cell members in the Bayaa and Aamel areas of...

In the past 10 days, the fiery Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia has resurfaced in force, making a push to roust Sunnis from Baghdad and to isolate Sunni enclaves in the west of the capital from their brethren in the south. Mahdi Army militiamen in the Shiite dominated neighborhood of Bayaa were reinforced by other Shiite fighters and men in civilian clothes with weapons have cordoned off the area. In the past 10 days Mahdi Army activity has escalated, intensifying in the past two days with the capture of two Sunni mosques, residents and police said. The push appears to...

After more than 14 weeks in hiding in Iran, Moqtada al-Sadr returned to Iraq last week. The question before Iraq now is, “Has he returned from Iran stronger than he was before he left?” Given the combination of SIIC leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim’s [wiki] absence from the Shia political scene, the training Sadr received in Iran, and the timing Tehran chose for his return, Moqtada al-Sadr has obviously returned strong. Strong enough to summon seven Iraqi governors to meet him and listen to his instructions about how they should run their respective provinces in central and southern Iraq at the...

Mahdi Army rocket team killed in helicopter, ground strikes as operations increase in Muqtada’s stronghold in Baghdad The return of Muqtada al Sadr from his four months of self imposed exile in Iran has led to a spike in activity against his political leadership and the extremist elements of his fractured Mahdi Army. Over the past few days, U.S. and Iraqi forces have conducted multiple operations in Sadr City, and over the past 24 hours, killed 4 Mahdi fighters and captured 6 after attacking a rocket team in the northeastern district. On Saturday and Sunday, U.S. and Iraqi forces conducted...

The Awakening movement, which was started in Anbar province by local tribes and Sunni insurgents that opposed al Qaeda's attempts to Talibanize Iraqi society, has now spread to all of the provinces bordering Baghdad. Over the past month, Awakening movements formed in Diyala and Salahadin, and, this week, the Babil Awakening was formed. Al Qaeda in Iraq immediately targeted the leader of the Babil Awakening, Sheikh Obeid Al-Masoud, seriously wounding him and his wife in the city of Iskandaria. Al Qaeda is working to destroy the nascent Awakening movements in the provinces, where they provide a political and ideological alternative...

Prince Harry, who is due to leave for Iraq, said he is willing to risk his life to serve his country. Harry, who delivered the speech to close friends at London’s Mahiki club on Friday, said: ‘I’m s**ting myself. I’m prepared to do anything they throw at me. I’m going to miss my family. But I am proud to serve my country, which is a great honor.’ Harry arrived at the exclusive club with girlfriend Chelsy Davy, who was wearing a short red dress. Harry’s friend Guy Pelly - Mahiki’s general manager - greeted the couple and showed them around...

BAGHDAD, April 7 -- American and Iraqi troops engaged in fierce fighting with Shiite militiamen in southern Iraq on Saturday, the second day of clashes that have raised the specter of a resurgence by the Mahdi Army after weeks of lying low. As combat aircraft zoomed overhead, U.S. and Iraqi troops fought the militia in street shootouts and hunted down fighters in house-to-house raids in what the U.S. military said was an attempt to wrest control of the city of Diwaniyah from loyalists of firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. It was the third major clash between U.S.-allied forces and the...

BAGHDAD (AP) - 0316dv-baghdad-briefing After weeks of cooperation with a new security plan, radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr decried U.S. forces as occupiers Friday and called on his followers to "shout 'No, No America!'" in a sign of resurgent anger and opposition. Thousands of Shiites flooded from the mosque where al-Sadr's statement was read by a preacher at Friday prayers, spilling into the streets of the Sadr City slum to protest the two-week-old American military presence there. The U.S. military says al-Sadr has gone to Iran. Officials with al-Sadr's Mahdi Army did not explain why al-Sadr chose to issue the...

Sources in the “Ahwazian Revolution Information Center” have alleged the presence of Sadrist elements and cadres in the Ahwaz region of southwest Iran, which has a large ethnic Arab population. In a statement, the center says its sources have observed some of the leadership of the Mahdi Army and its elements in the two border cities of Muhamra and Abadan, with the escort of Iranian guards, and under the auspices of the administrative area (qa’im maqama) of Abadan. The Sadrists arrived in “not insignificant” numbers, the statement says, and their appearance was noticed on Sunday in these two cities on...

Just breaking on CNN and Fox News...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, (AP) - Two key members of radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's political and military organization were gunned down just days before the U.S. and Iraqi forces planned to open a massive security drive in Baghdad. Ali Khazim, who ran al-Sadr's political organization in volatile Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, was killed Sunday by U.S. forces at his home in Howaider village, 12 miles east of Baqouba, Saleh al-Ageili, a spokesman for the Sadr Movement's parliamentary bloc, said on Monday. Provincial police confirmed al-Ageili's account. "What has happened to Khazim is part of the series of provocative acts...

Excerpt - BAGHDAD, Iraq - Two key members of radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's political and military organization were gunned down just days before the U.S. and Iraqi forces planned to open a massive security drive in Baghdad. Ali Khazim, who ran al-Sadr's political organization in volatile Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, was killed Sunday by U.S. forces at his home in Howaider village, 12 miles east of Baqouba, Saleh al-Ageili, a spokesman for the Sadr Movement's parliamentary bloc, said on Monday. Provincial police confirmed al-Ageili's account. "What has happened to Khazim is part of the series of provocative...

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Iraq: more than 600 militiamans Shiites of Sadr placed in detention BAGHDAD - the Iraqi forces of safety and the multinational Force stopped more than 600 militiamans of the Army of Mahdi, of the radical chief Moqtada Sadr Shiite, who wait to be judged by the Iraqi government, announced Monday the American army. More than 16 frameworks placed high of this militia were stopped and one of them was killed, specified the army in an official statement. Five of these frameworks are commanders of groups armed in the popular district Shiite with Sadr City, in the east of Baghdad,...

Iraq PM stops protecting Shiite militia By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer 43 minutes ago BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's prime minister has dropped his protection of an anti-American cleric's Shiite militia after U.S. intelligence convinced him the group was infiltrated by death squads, two officials said Sunday. In a desperate bid to fend off an all-out American offensive, the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr last Friday ordered the 30 lawmakers and six Cabinet ministers under his control to end their nearly two-month boycott of the government. They were back at their jobs Sunday. Al-Sadr had already ordered his militia fighters...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Mahdi Army militia members have stopped wearing their black uniforms, hidden their weapons and abandoned their checkpoints in an apparent effort to lower their profile in Baghdad in advance of the arrival of U.S. reinforcements. "We have explicit directions to keep a low profile . . . not to confront, not to be dragged into a fight and to calm things down," said one official who received the orders from the anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Al-Sadr heads the Mahdi Army, Iraq's largest Shiite militia, headquartered in Najaf. The official asked not to be named because he...

Excerpt - A Kurdish army brigade in northern Iraq was undergoing intensive urban combat training as it readied for deployment in the latest Baghdad security operation and was expected to take on the capital's Mahdi Army Shiite militia, its commander said on Saturday. Meanwhile, three Iraqi generals told The Associated Press that the Iraqi commander who will lead the overall Baghdad security mission was the government's second choice and only got the job after the U.S. military objected to the first officer named to the post by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. In the northern city of Irbil, Brig. Gen. Nazir...