"Iraqi cleric warns of uprising unless US ends crackdown"
"by Robert H. Reid, Associated Press | April 20, 2008
BAGHDAD - Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr gave a "final warning" to the government yesterday to halt a US-Iraqi crackdown against his followers or he would declare "open war until liberation."
Sadr's warning appeared on his website as Iraq's Shi'ite-dominated government claimed success in its push against Shi'ite militants in the southern city of Basra.
Iraqi soldiers backed by British troops entered Hayaniyah, the local stronghold of Sadr's Mahdi militia in Basra. Last month, Iraqi troops met fierce resistance when they tried to enter the neighborhood. Yesterday, however, they moved house to house, seizing weapons and detaining suspects.
Lieutenant General Ali Ghaidan, the Iraqi commander in charge of the operation, said he expected the whole area to be secured by today. There were no immediate reports of casualties in the Basra fighting.
At least 14 people were killed and 84 wounded in yesterday's fighting in Sadr City, the Baghdad stronghold of Sadr's Mahdi Army, officials said. Sporadic clashes were continuing after sundown.
The battles in Sadr City and the crackdown in Basra are part of a government campaign against followers of Sadr and Iranian-backed Shi'ite splinter groups the United States has identified as the gravest threat to a democratic Iraq.
Now he's the gravest threat! Pfffftt!
First it was Saddam, then it was "Al-CIA-Duh," now it is Sadr, whose it gonna be next week?!?
Get your heads out of your anal canal, 'murkns!!!!!
In the statement, Sadr... said he had tried to defuse tensions last August by declaring a unilateral truce, only to see the government respond by closing his offices and "resorting to assassinations."
"So I am giving my final warning . . . to the Iraqi government . . . to take the path of peace and abandon violence against its people," Sadr said. "If the government does not refrain . . . we will declare an open war until liberation."
.... The Iranians helped mediate a truce March 30, which eased clashes in Basra and elsewhere in the Shi'ite south.Eased the clashes? Where?
That's why Sadr is "threatening" war!
Fucking shit MSM!!!
But fighting persisted in Baghdad as US and Iraqi forces sought to push militiamen beyond the range where they could fire rockets and mortars at the Green Zone.
Readers? Sigh!!
The Americans are attempting to seal off much of Sadr City, home to about 2.5 million, and have used helicopter gunships and Predator drones to fire missiles at militiamen seeking refuge in the slum of northeast Baghdad.
At a news conference, Iran's ambassador to Baghdad said that his government supports the Iraqi move against "lawbreakers in Basra" but that the "insistence of the Americans to lay siege" to Sadr City "is a mistake."
"Lawbreakers [in Basra] must be held accountable . . . but the insistence of the Americans to lay siege to millions of people in a specific area and then bombing them randomly from air and damaging property is not correct," Ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qomi said.
To put it mildly!!!!
According to the Interior Ministry, at least 280 Iraqis have been killed in Sadr City fighting since March 25, including gunmen, security forces, and civilians.
Clashes also broke out yesterday near Nasiriyah, a Shi'ite city about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, leaving at least 22 people dead, police said."
But violence is down in Iraq since the truce!
Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!
