IRAQ: Mortars rain down on Sadr City after radical cleric distributes aid to Shi'ite victims of revenge attack in Baghdad

U.S. military helicopters could be seen flying over Baghdad after a barrage of mortar rounds hit the city's sprawling Shi'ite slum district of Sadr City on Saturday (November 25). There were no immediate reports of any casualties, residents said. An Iraqi journalist who lives locally said he had counted about 12 explosions in rapid succession. At about the same time two mortar bombs landed near the local office of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the Shi'ite enclave of Shula in mainly Sunni west Baghdad, a Sadr official said. Members of the Shi'ite Mehdi Army militia loyal to the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr held a mock-funeral on Saturday in the Shi'ite enclave of Hurriya. The event followed an apparent revenge attack a day after a series of bombs killed more two hundred people in the Shi'ite stronghold of Sadr City. Gunmen armed with hand grenades attacked a Sunni enclave in Hurriya on Friday, setting homes and mosques alight. Some 30 people were killed, police said, as suspected Shi'ite militiamen rampaged for hours, untroubled by the city-wide curfew or Iraqi or US forces. The White House called the violence since Thursday a "brazen effort to topple a democratically elected government". U.S. President George W. Bush, under pressure on Iraq after his Republicans were trounced at midterm elections this month, is due to meet Iraqi Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Jordan on Wednesday (November 29) at what is shaping up to be a crisis summit. But Maliki, beholden in parliament to radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, finds himself between a rock and a hard place. Aides to Sadr, whose Mehdi Army has its powerbase in Sadr City where Thursday's carnage enflamed anger at the U.S. forces, have threatened to quit the government if he meets Bush. On Saturday, a Shi'ite cleric and aide to al-Sadr, distributed food and gifts to relatives of the victims of Thursday's attack and to casualties in Sadr City General Hospital. Envelopes containing an undisclosed amount of money were left on the pillows of the injured. "As terrorism came once again under the guise of democracy that America brought with its tanks to the heroic Sadr City, trying to ruin security and authority, but God and the heroes of Sadr City will be there for them," said Ibrahim al-Jabiri. The city of seven million was under a tight curfew for a second full day on Saturday. The Iraqi government called for calm, desperate to avert the sort of sharp escalation in violence that followed an attack on a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra in February. This time, many fear, such revenge attacks could push Iraq over the edge. A series of car bombs devastated Sadr City, a stronghold of Sadr's Mehdi Army militia, on Thursday (November 23), killing more than 200 people in the worst attack since the U.S. invasion in 2003.

ITN Source | November 25, 2006

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