BAGHDAD (Agencies)
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Friday ordered his forces to stop raids across Iraq to give a chance to those wanting to surrender their weapons in the wake of fierce clashes with Shiite fighters.
"To give a chance to those who wish to lay down their arms, all raids and search operations will be stopped in all areas," Maliki said in a statement released by his office.
Reiterating a similar order issued earlier this week, Maliki, however, ordered his forces to "chase those who have returned to arms."
Earlier, Maliki has threatened more attacks on militiamen around the country, as Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called for a million Iraqis to march against U.S. "occupiers", threatening a massive show of strength a week after his Mahdi Army militia battled U.S. and government troops.
Earlier, Maliki has threatened more attacks on militiamen around the country, as Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called for a million Iraqis to march against U.S. "occupiers", threatening a massive show of strength a week after his Mahdi Army militia battled U.S. and government troops.
"I expect more crackdowns like this. We do not negotiate with outlaws," Maliki told a news conference at his office in the capital's heavily fortified Green Zone.
"The coming days will witness more assaults as people are still in the control of gangs," he said, naming areas such as Shuala, Sadr City and Ameriyah in Baghdad as possible targets of military operations.
Shuala and Sadr City are bastions of Sadr loyalists while Ameriyah used to be a stronghold of Sunni insurgents.
Maliki was speaking after last week's crackdown in Baghdad and the southern city of Basra, which mostly targeted fighters of Sadr's Mahdi Army militia.
The Basra crackdown which began on March 25 quickly fuelled clashes in other Shiite regions of Iraq, including in the capital, and killed at least 461 people and wounded more than 1,100.
Meanwhile, a statement released by Sadr's office in the holy city of Najaf called on Iraqis of all sects to descend on the southern city, site of annual Shiite pilgrimages that attract hundreds of thousands of worshippers.
"The time has come to express your rejections and raise your voices loud against the unjust occupier and enemy of nations and humanity, and against the horrible massacres committed by the occupier against our honorable people," it said.
The demonstration, called for the fifth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad on Wednesday, raises the prospect of unrest coinciding with a politically sensitive progress report to Congress by the top U.S. officials in Iraq.
"If his intention is to get a whole lot of people together and go and make trouble in Najaf, I don't think that is going to be very popular," U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker told a briefing.
U.S. forces called in helicopter strikes during a clash with suspected Sadr gunmen on Thursday in the city of Hilla and bombed a house in Basra overnight, after days of relative calm that followed a truce Sadr announced on Sunday.
The Iraqi government said it would not try to block the April 9 march if it was peaceful.
Interior Ministry spokesman Major-General Abdul-Karim Khalaf told Reuters: "The right to hold a peaceful demonstration and express opinions is guaranteed by the constitution." |
