IRAQ:Senior aides to the powerful Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr yesterday warned the US and the Iraqi government that a six-month freeze on the activities of their militia may not be extended unless the prime minister, Nouri al Maliki, takes steps to halt attacks on Sadr's followers, writes Michael Howardin Baghdad
Sadr's order to his Jaish al-Mahdi militia is regarded as a vital component of the nationwide downturn in violence during the past six months.
Fighters loyal to Sadr had been blamed for fuelling the sectarian violence that gripped Baghdad and religiously mixed areas to the north and south of the capital.
A renewal of their activities could undo much of the recent progress in security and stir up tensions among Iraq's Shia.
Speaking from his base in the holy city of Najaf, Sadr's senior spokesman, Salah al-Obeidi, said gangs of thugs linked to Sadr's Shia political rivals had infiltrated Iraqi security forces and were using the surge as a cover to attack "civilian followers" of the radical cleric.
He said Sadr's supporters and their families in the southern cities of Diwaniya, Kerbala and Samawa had been subject to "the worst kind of human rights abuses, including killings and beatings".
"More than 1,000 families have been displaced," said Obeidi.
He declined to name the group he held responsible, but Sadr's supporters have frequently clashed with the Badr brigades, an armed group loyal to the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, their chief rival for control of Iraq's newly dominant Shia majority.
He said the prime minister was being "pressured by people and parties around him" and that "Iraq needed a new team" in government.
"We think the decision by Moqtada al-Sadr to freeze the Jaish al-Mahdi was a good one and has had important benefits for the Iraq people, and the freeze will continue," said Obeidi.
"But there is concern from our followers that ordering another period [ of the ceasefire] will only give a green light to these bad police - some of them from Saddam's time - to make more pressure against us and harass us."
Sadr is due to review the six-month freeze later this month.
Last week, the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, wrote to the senior US commander in Iraq, Gen David Petraeus, asking him to recognise Sadr's initiative and urging American troops to halt their attacks on Sadr's supporters.
In reply, the general praised the anti-US Shia cleric, but said the troops would continue to target those who were apparently not obeying the cleric's orders.
US commanders and western diplomats in Iraq say Sadr's prolonged absence from public life has left his militia in a state of flux, and that it contains a number of rogue cells more loyal to Iran.
Sadr is currently believed to be continuing his theological studies in the Iranian holy city of Qom.