Sadrist vows to support Amarah security crackdown

[David]

AP


BAGHDAD - Followers of Muqtada al-Sadr won't resist a military operation in the southern city of Amarah unless government forces commit human rights violations and arrest suspects without warrants, a senior official and member of the cleric's movement said Monday.

The comment came as al-Sadr's followers try to sidestep what they see as a government campaign to undermine the movement ahead of expected provincial elections in the fall.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, himself a Shiite, has sent U.S.-backed Iraqi troops to Amarah, a stronghold of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia and the purported center of weapons smuggling from Iran.

Iraqi tanks and Humvees prowled the streets of Amarah as soldiers manned checkpoints and patrolled the city, but no fighting was reported.

The government has given militiamen until Wednesday to turn in heavy weapons or face mass arrests in an operation to begin the next day.

The Sadrist governor of Maysan province, of which Amarah is the capital, said local officials have "expressed their support for the imposing law operation due to start in the coming few days."

But Gov. Adel Mhodir also warned against "human rights violations during the raids or cases of arrests without warrants," a common complaint among Sadrists who accuse the government of unfairly targeting their movement nationwide.

"There is agreement among all the parties and blocs, including al-Sadr's office, on the necessity of imposing the law ... yet the rights of the citizens should be preserved while this operation is implemented," Mhodir added in a statement on the provincial government's Web site.

The tone differed from the defiance of Sadrist officials in the runup to past security operations in the southern oil hub of Basra and Baghdad's Sadr City, indicating Amarah may not witness the fierce fighting that accompanied crackdowns there.

Al-Sadr's main office in Amarah also was evacuated and turned over peacefully to the local government on Sunday, a provincial spokesman said, declining to be identified because of security concerns.

Al-Sadr has announced in recent days that he will divide his militia into fighting and political units, and his followers said they will run candidates on other party tickets in the elections to avoid being targeted as Sadrists.

U.S. and Iraqi commanders have said many senior militia leaders escaped military action by fleeing to neighboring Iran, which has denied allegations that it support violence in Iraq.

The strategy shift is occurring as al-Sadr's followers hope to use the balloting to loosen the grip on power that their Shiite rivals have enjoyed since the January 2005 elections, which the Sadrists boycotted.

Signaling continued tensions, however, rockets slammed into the British base at the Basra airport on Monday, causing no casualties but forcing the runway to be temporarily closed to civilian aircraft, the British military said.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said those who turn in their weapons in Amarah will receive an unspecified monetary reward while the others will face arrest when the operation begins on Thursday.

"Our troops will launch their military operations in accordance with the drawn-up and planned scheme to start their deployment on June 19," he told AP Television News, adding the goal was to make Amarah a "demilitarized zone."

He also said Iraqi security forces were prepared for similar offensives in the volatile provinces of Diyala and Dhi Qar to deny safe havens to fugitive militants.

"Those who try to run away will not find a hideout in Iraq anymore. Iraq will be too small for them to hide," Khalaf said.

Maysan is the only one of Iraq's 18 provinces to be in official Sadrist control.

Iraqi security forces also are targeting suspected Sunni insurgents in the northern city of Mosul as civilians and U.S.-allied fighters continue to face attacks.

A roadside bomb hit a car carrying U.S.-allied fighters from a Sunni group that had turned against al-Qaida in Iraq near Buhriz, about 35 miles north of Baghdad, killing three and wounding another, a local police official said.

A mortar shell slammed into a building housing Iraqi soldiers and members of another anti-al-Qaida Sunni group in the Khadra area in western Baghdad, killing one soldier and one member of the "awakening council," police and army officers said. Eight people were wounded in the Khadra attack.

Another bomb in the northern city of Mosul killed one civilian and wounded two others, a police official there said.

The Iraqi officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information.