Cleric accuses US of stoking violence in Iraq

BAGHDAD -- Calling the United States the "great evil," radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr yesterday accused US forces of dividing Iraq by stoking violence. He also urged his Mahdi Army militiamen and Iraqi security forces to stop fighting in Diwaniya, a southern city where clashes erupted late last week.

The influential cleric's verbal assault came as the US military announced that 10 American soldiers were killed over the weekend, including six yesterday in attacks north and south of Baghdad. At least 69 Iraqis were also killed or found dead across Iraq.

Sadr, a fierce nationalist who has long called for a US withdrawal, stopped short of telling his fighters to rise up against American troops, a move that would severely complicate an ongoing security offensive underway in the capital and other parts of Iraq. Instead, he ordered his followers to remain united and to "demonstrate" to "end the occupation."

"My brothers in the Mahdi Army, and my brothers in the security services: enough fighting and rivalry, because that is only a success for our, and your, enemy," Sadr said in a statement brimming with emotion and passages from the Koran. "Infighting between brothers is not right, nor is it right to follow the dirty American sedition, or to defend . . . the occupier."

The message came as thousands of Iraqis flowed to the southern holy city of Najaf, heeding Sadr's command to stage a massive anti-US protest today, the fourth anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein. Hundreds of buses and cars clogged the road to Najaf yesterday as thousands of his supporters waved Iraqi flags and shouted religious and anti-American slogans.

"No, no, no, to America . . . Moqtada, yes, yes, yes," they chanted, as Iraqi televisions crews followed them.

Sheik Abdul Razaq al-Nadawi, a Sadr spokesman in Najaf, said clashes erupted in Simawa province, south of Baghdad, between Mahdi Army militiamen and the police, who were apparently trying to stop them from heading to Najaf. He said five militiamen were killed after protesters attacked the police with bricks and stones. The report could not be independently verified.

"The situation is tense now in Simawa," Nadawi said.

The tensions followed two days of fierce battles pitting US and Iraqi forces against Mahdi Army militiamen in Diwaniya. As US combat aircraft launched strikes, house-to-house clashes erupted. A curfew was still being enforced yesterday in the city and US forces patrolled the streets, said Hamid Jiati, a Diwaniya health department official.

Sadr is engaged in an uneasy cooperation with US and Iraqi forces in Baghdad, particularly in his stronghold of Sadr City. He has ordered his fighters to stand down as US troops patrol and conduct security sweeps and to avoid being provoked into battle.

It is unclear whether Sadr ordered the Diwaniya clashes, rogue elements of the Mahdi Army rose up, or individual militiamen were defending their homes. But the clashes and Sadr's acerbic comments underscored the fragility of his cooperation with the new security offensive.

"Up until now, we have not made any decision to clash against the American or the Iraqi forces," Sheik Salah al-Ubaidi, a close aide to Sadr, said in a telephone interview from Najaf.

A car bomb killed 17 people and wounded 28 in an industrial area of Mahmodiyah, a town south of Baghdad, police officials said, the latest in a series of attacks in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq since the security plan took effect in mid-February.