Iraqi security forces battled Shiite gunmen south of Baghdad on Friday, raising tensions among rival factions of the country's majority religious community and straining a seven-month cease-fire proclaimed by the biggest Shiite militia. ( AP )
The fighting in Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, broke out Thursday night when factions of the Mahdi Army, led by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, attacked checkpoints throughout the city, officials and witnesses said.
Two policemen and two gunmen were killed during the clashes in Kut, which ended Friday, according to Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf.
Also Friday, U.S. and Iraqi forces raided neighborhoods of southern Baghdad and Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of the capital, detaining suspected members of the Mahdi Army, Iraqi police said.
Al-Sadr proclaimed a cease-fire last August and extended it indefinitely last month. But the firebrand cleric, who led two uprisings against U.S.-led forces in 2004, has authorized his followers to defend themselves if attacked.
Al-Sadr's supporters have complained that the Shiite-led government has used the cease-fire to accelerate a crackdown against their movement in Baghdad and the Shiite heartland south of the capital.
Iraqi security forces are heavily influenced by a rival Shiite group, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which wields considerable power in the central government and in provincial administrations throughout the south.
Rival Shiite groups have been battling for control of the oil-rich south with an eye toward the eventual withdrawal of U.S.-led forces. Shiites form an estimated 60 percent of Iraq's 27 million people.
A Sadrist member of parliament alleged that the crackdown in Kut and elsewhere in the south was part of a move by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa party and the supreme council to prevent al-Sadr's followers from winning control of key southern provinces in provincial elections expected this fall.
"They have no supporters in the central and southern provinces, but we do," Ahmed al-Massoudi told The Associated Press. "If the crackdown against the Sadrists continues, we will begin consultations with other parliamentary blocs to bring down the government and replace it with a genuinely national one."
Al-Sadr's cease-fire last summer was responsible in part for the dramatic fall in violence in Iraq, and U.S. officials have been careful to avoid accusing the young cleric of any role in recent fighting.
Instead, the U.S. military points the finger at "criminals" and "rogue militiamen" who have defied al-Sadr's cease-fire order and who maintain close ties to Iran.
Iraqi reinforcements were sent to Kut four days ago to wrest control from Mahdi Army fighters, police said.
However, al-Sadr's followers have been growing increasingly angry at what they consider a government campaign against them under the guise of a security crackdown.
In Basra, a Sadrist cleric, Sheik Nasir al-Mashaykhi, told worshippers at Friday prayer services that "we are committed to the cease-fire decision" and would punish Mahdi Army members who break the truce.
But al-Mashaykhi warned against any move to crack down on al-Sadr's followers in Basra, the country's second largest city and headquarters of Iraq's vast oil industry.
" Basra is not Kut or Diwaniyah," he said. " Basra will turn into a cemetery for those who try to fight the Sadrists or detain them."
In Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi troops clashed with Shiite gunmen late Thursday in a southwestern neighborhood, police said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information. There was no immediate comment from U.S. officials.
However, the U.S. command said Iraqi helicopters late Thursday fired a Hellfire missile and 30 mm cannon at gunmen who had attacked coalition troops with mortars or rockets. Six of the gunmen were killed, the U.S. statement said.
The statement did not identify the assailants but said the attack occurred in a Baghdad district where Shiite militiamen operate.
Also Friday, the U.S. military released 13 detainees who were welcomed home at a ceremony in the former Sunni insurgent stronghold of Azamiyah in northern Baghdad. It was the latest in a series of releases meant as a goodwill gesture to promote reconciliation with minority Sunnis who have turned against al-Qaida in Iraq.