Sadr takes fighters off streets, makes demands

[unhappycamper]

Mahdi Army fighters drive away with captured Iraqi armored police vehicles outside a state run al-Iraqiya TV facility in Basra, Iraq, on March 30. Mahdi Army fighters stormed the state TV facility, forcing Iraqi military guards surrounding the building to flee.


Sadr takes fighters off streets, makes demands
By Kim Gamel - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Mar 31, 2008 6:48:39 EDT

BAGHDAD — In a possible turning point in the recent upsurge in violence, Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Shiite militiamen off the streets Sunday but called on the government to stop its raids against his followers.

The government welcomed the move, which followed intense negotiations by Shiite officials, including two lawmakers who reportedly traveled to Iran to ask religious authorities there to intervene.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose Tuesday offensive in the oil-rich southern city in Basra sparked the crisis, called al-Sadr’s statement “a step in the right direction.”

But fighting continued in the Basra area after the announcement. Seven people also were killed when a mortar struck a residential district in Baghdad’s Karradah district, and witnesses reported clashes in the Shula area in a northern section of the capital.

A U.S. soldier also was killed Sunday in a roadside bombing north of Baghdad, the military said, raising to at least 4,008 American service members who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/03/ap_iraqfighting_033008/

[4dsc]

1. Rightie claimed Al Sadr "backed down"...

But then again, rightie is so funny..