Shiite cleric's bloc will bail out

BAGHDAD — The followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr will withdraw from Iraq's leading political alliance, a spokesman for the group said Saturday.

The decision, announced at al-Sadr's headquarters in the southern city of Najaf, further imperils Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government. Nearly half the ministers have abandoned their seats in Maliki's Cabinet.

The Sadrists have accused Maliki of failing to provide adequate security and expressed frustration with his refusal to set a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops.

Al-Sadr's followers are the second group to withdraw from Maliki's alliance, after the Fadhila party's decision to pull out in March.

Al-Sadr spokesman Salah al-Obeidi said the withdrawal would not affect his group's political positions, including opposition to a proposed law that would equally distribute oil revenue to various regions of the country. The proposal is considered an important political benchmark by the Bush administration, but it has been stalled in the Iraqi Cabinet for months.

The U.S. military announced Saturday that 14 people suspected to be connected to the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaida in Iraq were killed in three operations. Iraqi and U.S. troops came under fire as they conducted operations targeting senior leaders of the insurgent group in Diyala and Tamim provinces and in Muqdadiyah, a town northeast of Baghdad, the military said.

Separately, the military announced that a soldier was killed Friday by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad.

U.S. military and intelligence officials also said the number of foreign fighters entering Iraq from Syria has decreased noticeably in recent months, corresponding to a similar decrease in suicide bombings and other attacks by the group al-Qaida in Iraq.

"There is an early indication of a trend," said Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, in an interview. Border crossings from Syria that averaged 80 to 90 a month have fallen to "half or two-thirds of that over the last two or three months," Petraeus said.

The al-Qaida-affiliated group Islamic State of Iraq on Saturday threatened to assassinate Sunni leaders who support American troops in Iraq. The group has claimed responsibility for the assassination Thursday of Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, the mastermind of the Sunni Arab revolt against al-Qaida in Anbar province. President Bush met Abu Risha at a U.S. base in Anbar this month and praised his courage.

In a Web posting, the Islamic State said it had formed "special security committees" to track down and "assassinate the tribal figures, the traitors, who stained the reputations of the real tribes by submitting to the soldiers of the Crusade" and the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The Sunni revolt that Abu Risha spearheaded has led to a dramatic improvement in security in Anbar.

Meanwhile, in the capital, a car bomb exploded late Saturday in a mostly Shiite area of southwest Baghdad, killing at least 11 people lined up to buy bread at a bakery. Two of the dead were children, police said.