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With the Iraqi government applying pressure to the Sadrist movement and Muqtada al Sadr to disband the Mahdi Army, Iraq’s senior Shia cleric has weighed in on the issue. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most revered Shia cleric in Iraq, backed the government’s position that the Mahdi Army should surrender its weapons and said he never consulted with Sadr on disbanding the Mahdi Army. Instead, the decision to disband the Mahdi Army is Sadr’s to make. Sistani spoke through Jalal el Din al Saghier, a senior leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a rival political party to the...

Iraqi and Coalition forces are conducting strikes against the Mahdi Army and other Iranian-backed Shia terror groups in Baghdad and Basrah. As these raids are occurring, the Sadrist movement cancels a scheduled protest in Baghdad and issues conflicting reports about Muqtada al Sadr's consultations with Shia clerics to disband the Mahdi Army. Clashes in Baghdad Today's clashes in the Shia neighborhood in northeastern Baghdad began after Mahdi Army fighters attacked a police and US Army patrol and fired mortars and rockets at the International Zone in central Baghdad. Five policemen and four civilians were wounded in an improvised explosive device...

Less than two weeks after Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki launched Operation Knights' Assault to clear the Mahdi Army and other Iranian-backer militias in Basrah, the Iraqi government is moving to ban Muqtada al Sadr's political movement from participating in the election if it fails to disband the militia. Facing near-unanimous opposition, Sadr said he would seek guidance from senior Shia clerics in Najaf and Qom and disband the Mahdi Army if told to do so, according to one aide. But another Sadr aide denied this. The pressure on Sadr and his Mahdi Army started on Sunday after Maliki announced...

Fighting between the Coalition and Madhi Army fighters broke out today as operations against the Mahdi Army and the Special Groups continue despite Prime Minister Maliki's call for a halt in operations. Early reports indicate between nine and 20 Iraqis were killed during clashes in Sadr City at the 55 intersection and Falah Street. Abdellatif Rayan, a media adviser to Multinational Forces Iraq said a US Army helicopter killed nine "criminals" in Sadr City. "We do have reports of an air weapons team engagement, a US helicopter, where nine criminals were killed at around 8:00 AM," Rayan told Voices of...

BAGHDAD - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Thursday he planned to launch more security crackdowns like the one in Basra against "criminal gangs" in Baghdad. Addressing a news conference, he singled out Sadr City and Shula — two Mahdi Army militia strongholds in Baghdad — as likely targets in the future crackdowns, saying they were under the sway of "criminal gangs." Al-Maliki did not mention by name the Mahdi Army militia, which is led by radical Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr. Sadr City and Shula are militia strongholds and any attack by government troops there is likely to trigger a backlash...

Three-day curfew ends in Baghdad Baghdad's Sadr City is still burying its dead from the fighting Iraqi authorities have lifted a curfew in Baghdad, allowing people to leave their homes and easing most measures put in force on Thursday. Driving is still prohibited in three mainly Shia districts, including Sadr City, which saw some of the heaviest fighting last week. Mehdi Army militiamen have withdrawn from the streets, residents say. On Sunday, their leader, radical cleric Moqtada Sadr, ordered them to stop fighting Iraqi security forces. The fighting has claimed more than 240 lives across the country since Tuesday....

Six days after the Iraqi government launched Operation Knights’ Charge in Basrah against the Mahdi Army and other Iranian-backed Shia terror groups, Muqtada al Sadr, the Leader of the Mahdi Army, has called for his fighters to lay down their weapons and cooperate with Iraqi security forces. Sadr’s call for an end to the fighting comes as his Mahdi Army has taken serious losses since the operation began. "Sadr has sent a message to his loyalists urging them to end all armed activities," the Al Iraqiya television channel reported. Sadr "disowned anyone attacking the state institutions or parties' offices and...

BAGHDAD - Anti-American Shiite militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his followers Saturday to defy government orders to surrender their weapons, as U.S. jets struck Shiite extremists near Basra to bolster a faltering Iraqi offensive against gunmen in the city. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki acknowledged he may have miscalculated by failing to foresee the strong backlash that his offensive, which began Tuesday, provoked in areas of Baghdad and other cities where Shiite militias wield power. Government television said the round-the-clock curfew imposed two days ago on the capital and due to expire Sunday would be extended indefinitely. The U.S. Embassy tightened...

BAGHDAD - U.S. jets widened the bombing of Basra on Saturday, dropping two precision-guided bombs on a suspected militia stronghold north of the city, British officials said. Maj. Tom Holloway, a British military spokesman, said U.S. jets dropped the two bombs on a militia position in Qarmat Ali shortly before 12:30 p.m. Basra is Iraq's commercial and oil hub, and militant followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have been battling Iraqi and coalition forces in the southern city since Tuesday. "My understanding was that this was a building that had people who were shooting back at Iraqi ground forces,"...

BAGHDAD - U.S. forces stepped deeper Friday into the Iraqi government's fight to cripple Shiite militias, launching airstrikes in the southern city of Basra and firing a Hellfire missile in the main Shiite stronghold in Baghdad. The American support occurred as Iraqi troops struggled against strong resistance in Basra and retaliation elsewhere in Shiite areas — including more salvos of rockets or mortars into the U.S.-protected Green Zone in Baghdad. It was the first time American jets have been called to attack militia positions since Iraqi ground forces launched an operation Tuesday to clear Basra of the armed groups that...

BAGHDAD (AP) - The Baghdad military command has clamped a weekend curfew on the capital in a bid to stem fierce fighting between Shiite militiamen and security forces. An official with the command says no unauthorized vehicles, motorcycles or pedestrian traffic will be allowed on the streets from 11 p.m. Thursday to 5 a.m. Sunday. The move comes as anger mounts among followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr over a government crackdown against his Mahdi Army militia in the southern oil port of Basra. The security operations have sparked protests and deadly clashes in Baghdad and across the Shiite...

BAGHDAD - Warning sirens wail and within seconds rockets and mortars strike — sometimes one or two, other times 10 or more. The Green Zone is again a prime target as American and British diplomats, Iraqi politicians, contractors and others struggle to go about their business — always aware that any time they are outside the most fortified buildings there is a chance to be injured or killed. The danger has temporarily reshaped life: Green Zone traffic is minimal, few people venture out on the streets and security precautions — always high — have been boosted. Many diplomats and others...

BAGHDAD - Shiite militiamen are everywhere. Police and Iraqi army checkpoints are nowhere in sight. U.S. soldiers are keeping their distance. Sadr City — the Baghdad nerve center for the powerful Mahdi Army — is suddenly back on edge as the militia leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, and Iraq's government lock in a dangerous confrontation over clout and control among the nation's majority Shiites. The epicenter of the showdown has been the southern oil hub of Basra, where clashes have claimed dozens of lives this week and al-Sadr's forces face a Friday deadline to surrender. But a more finely tuned measure of...

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Moqtada al-Sadr's militiamen Tuesday battled troops in four Iraqi cities on Tuesday, including the capital, as the hardline Shiite cleric threatened a countrywide campaign of civil revolt. Heavy clashes broke out between Sadr's Mahdi Army fighters in the southern oil city of Basra, killing at least seven people and wounding 48, and in Kut and Hilla, both south of Baghdad, officials said. As evening fell, Mahdi Army fighters fought with Iraqi and US forces in their Sadr City bastion in eastern Baghdad for the first time since last October, a security official and witnesses told AFP. Troops...

Excerpt - BASRA, Iraq, March 25 (Reuters) - Heavy fighting erupted on Tuesday in Iraq's southern city of Basra where Iraqi authorities have clashed with members of the Mehdi Army militia, a Reuters witness said. An Iraqi military official said Iraqi forces had launched operations to "cleanse" Basra of armed groups. "Sounds of explosions were heard in different areas of Basra and columns of smoke have been rising from northern districts of the city," the witness said. ~ snip ~

Imad Mugniyah, the senior Hezbollah military commander who was killed in Syria earlier this month, helped form the Mahdi Army, the military wing of the radical Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al Sadr, according to an Iraqi intelligence official. He was described as a “co-founder” of the Mahdi Army, Naharnet reported, based on a translation from the Iraqi daily Al Zaman. Mugniyah helped form the Mahdi Army after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in April 2003. He recruited from the Shia communities in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and then sent the recruits to Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley for training. “The 300...

BAGHDAD - Rockets or mortars hit the U.S.-protected Green Zone early Saturday, just a day after powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Mahdi Army militia to extend its cease-fire by another six months. ADVERTISEMENT Starting about 6:15 a.m., nearly 10 blasts could be heard in the sprawling area along the Tigris River that houses the U.S. and British embassies, the Iraqi government headquarters and thousands of American troops. Maj. Brad Leighton, a U.S. military spokesman, confirmed the Green Zone was hit by indirect fire — the military's term for a rocket or mortar attack — but could not immediately...

A leader of the Sadrist movement, or Iraqis loyal to Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr, died of wounds sustained during his arrest by police forces in Diwaniya last month, a media source from al-Sadr's office in the province said on Saturday. "On Saturday morning, Sadrist leader Abbas al-Gharabawi died in Diwaniya's General Hospital of wounds sustained during his arrest by emergency police forces in Afak city last month," Abu Zeinab al-Karaawi told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).

The U.S. is providing “logistic and intelligence assistance” to a rival Shiite faction to weaken the Sadr Movement, a movement’s senior official said. Bahaa al-Araji said the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, a leading ally of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, was working to undermine the movement and to provoke its military wing. The Mahdi Army, the movement’s military arm, has vowed to suspend military operations targeting U.S. and Iraqi troops as well as other militia factions. But Araji said the movement, led by Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr may not be able to keep its promise with the U.S. siding with one...

The British commander in southern Iraq confirmed yesterday that UK officials have been holding talks with supporters of the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army in the hope they would be drawn into the political process. Major General Graham Binns said the security situation in Basra province - to be handed over to Iraqi forces next month - was improving and attacks against British and Iraqi forces had fallen by 90% since British troops withdrew from their last base in the centre of the city in September. Confirming the talks with the Mahdi army, first reported in the Guardian, Binns...