US seeks arrest of cleric, surrounds turbulent city
Coalition troops vow to disarm Sadr's operation
BAGHDAD -- US occupation authorites yesterday vowed to arrest militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr for the murder of a rival Shi'ite Muslim cleric, but his followers pledged to fight to the death, ratcheting up the confrontation that has sparked two days of violent clashes and raised the specter of an uprising among Iraq's Shi'ite majority.
Occupation forces moved aggressively on two fronts yesterday. They surrounded the turbulent Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah, a center of insurgent attacks, and prepared to launch a major operation in response to the grisly killings of four US contractors there Wednesday. And they promised to dismantle or disarm Sadr's organization, which in recent days has eclipsed Sunni insurgents as the most immediate threat to stability in Iraq.
Sadr's supporters took control of the southern town of Kufa and fortified themselves inside a mosque where the cleric preaches fiery sermons every Friday, demanding a guarantee that US-led forces will leave Iraq. Last night, they moved a few miles away to the Iman Ali shrine in Najaf, the holiest Shi'ite site in Iraq. They sealed off the streets around the mosque and drove away coalition-trained security forces, bracing for a US-led attack.
The developments changed the tenor of the operations in Iraq, placing US forces on higher alert and increasing tensions on the streets at a time when US-led authorities had planned to use a softer touch to win support for the Iraqi government due to take power June 30.
Major General Martin Dempsey, commander of US forces in Baghdad, yesterday deemed private militias like Sadr's "possibly the most dangerous of all" the threats to security and democracy in Iraq. Militias range from the Kurdish peshmerga that helped overthrow Saddam Hussein to the 10,000-strong Badr Brigade, the armed wing of the largest Shi'ite party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, to little-known groups like one calling itself the Rage Militia.
US forces battled Sadr's Army of the Mahdi in Baghdad for the second straight day -- this time in a neighborhood far from his Sadr City stronghold, where militiamen killed eight US troops Sunday night. The clashes, the worst in the Iraqi capital since US forces took the city about a year ago, also left 52 Iraqis and one Salvadoran soldier dead.
A senior US military official said intercepted communications prove "with absolute certainty" that Sadr personally directed the attacks.
The US occupation chief, L. Paul Bremer III, yesterday branded Sadr an "outlaw," an apparent bid to drive a wedge between him and the majority of Shi'ites, who make up about 60 percent of the population and so far have not widely participated in the anti-US attacks.
"Individuals who create violence, who incite violence, who execute violence against persons inside of Iraq will be hunted down and captured or killed. It is that simple," Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, a US military spokesman, told reporters.
Sadr's aides said the Iraqis would rally to their side if US forces attempt to arrest the cleric.
"If they even try to do such a thing, there will be rivers of blood," Sayyid Amer al-Hussein, the head of the Sadr City office near the scene of Sunday night's violence, said in a telephone interview. "And we as Muslims have learned to defend what is sacred to us."
The clashes began after coalition troops closed Sadr's newspaper last week, accusing it of inciting violence. On Friday, Sadr gave one of his most inflammatory sermons, calling on his followers to "strike" at the occupiers "where you find them" and declaring his solidarity with Hezbollah and Hamas militants.
The next day, a Sadr aide, Mustafa Yacoubi, was detained in the killing of Ayatollah Sayad Abdul Majid al-Khoei, a moderate cleric and a Sadr rival who was hacked to death last year when he returned to Najaf from exile in London.
Warrants for both Sadr's arrest and Yacoubi were signed months ago. US officials insisted that the timing was a coincidence and that the Iraqi judge in charge of the case executed the warrant to fit his court schedule. They did not explain why, if they knew Sadr was a threat, they allowed him to remain free for months after the warrant was signed.
Sadr refused to meet with a delegation of religious and tribal leaders who urged him to renounce violence, an aide to Mohammad Bahr al-Uloum, a member of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, told Reuters.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most senior and respected Shi'ite cleric, supported the appeal that was rebuffed, the aide said. Although US authorities have clashed politically with Sistani, who has forced them several times to change their plans for the handoff of power, he has urged his followers to stick to nonviolent protest.
Last night, blasts shook Fallujah, where US Marines blocked traffic in and out of the city. Iraqi police dropped off US leaflets announcing a curfew of 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. and ordering Iraqis not to carry weapons and to gather in one room if troops enter their homes. The operation will involve 1,200 US Marines along with Iraqi forces, US officials said.
Streets in many quarters of Baghdad yesterday played host to scenes of postbattle rage not seen since April 2003, when US troops entered the city and fought Hussein loyalists for several weeks before taking complete control.
Fighting broke out in al-Shuala when US troops fired on Sadr supporters who blocked off streets around their office in that neighborhood. They contended that they demonstrated peacefully. But one US Army vehicle appeared burned, and US officials said members of the armed crowd threw stones.
Afterward, hundreds of men thronged the intersections along the riverbank street. The air was thick with black smoke from burning tires -- used as roadblocks -- and buildings set aflame by an
Dozens of men in Army of the Mahdi uniform swung machine guns over their shoulders and eyed the Americans in Humvees and tanks who had set up roadblocks at every approach to the office.
"If you wait here five minutes, I'll . . . shoot those Americans," screamed a militiaman, Sabah Mohammed. "If we face fire from the Americans, we will fight until our last child is killed. We'll make it 10 times worse than Vietnam."
At least two Iraqis died in the shootings, hospital officials said. A Sadr chief in the area said four more were killed in a second clash last night.
Dempsey, the Baghdad commander, said the Sadr City clashes Sunday night involved 500 to 1,000 militiamen and 1,000 US troops, with Americans firing tank rounds and machine guns and militiamen using AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, pipe bombs, and hand grenades.
The militiamen laid a trap, he said, luring a US patrol to a group of armed men, then shooting them from the flanks. Two separate armored columns of troops who came to the patrol's aid were ambushed, but order was restored when a tank column arrived after more than four hours of fighting.
In Sadr City yesterday, some police cautiously returned to work as US armored vehicles lined the main street.
Across the street, Razaq Sabri, 30, said he was a member of Sadr's militia, which he alleged was being singled out by US forces: "Why only the Shi'ites? Why only the people in Sadr City?"
He said the militia would retake the police station.
"You find us now here, standing doing nothing," he said. "Wait until the evening comes."
Globe correspondent Sa'adal-Izzi contributed to this report. Material from Globe wire services was also used. 
