Anti-American militia seizes control of southern-Iraq city

BAGHDAD, Iraq – The Shiite militia run by the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr seized control of a southern Iraqi city today in one of the boldest acts of defiance yet by the country's powerful, unofficial armies, witnesses and police said.

Mahdi Army fighters stormed three main police stations this morning, residents said, planting explosives that flattened the buildings in Amarah, a city just 30 miles from the Iranian border that was under British command until August, when it was returned to Iraqi government control.

About 800 black-clad militiamen with Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades were patrolling in commandeered police vehicles, witnesses said. Other fighters set up roadblocks on routes into the city and sound trucks circulated telling residents to stay indoors.

The militiamen later withdrew from their positions and lifted their siege of police headquarters under a temporary truce negotiated with an al-Sadr envoy. By afternoon, it was unclear clear whether security forces had reasserted control over the city or whether the cleric knew about his militia's planned takeover in advance.

The Iraqi army dispatched two companies to Amarah from Basra, the south's largest city. Mohammad al-Alaskari, a Defense Ministry spokesman, said "the situation is still tense."

The events in Amarah — involving a dispute between the Mahdi Army and local security forces believed controlled by the rival Badr Brigade militia — highlight the threat of wider violence between rival Shiite factions, who have entrenched themselves among the majority Shiite population and are blamed for killings of rival Sunnis.

Al-Sadr's envoy, whose identity remains unknown, was due to meet with the provincial governor, the local Mahdi Army commander and al-Sadr's representative in Amarah, a city of 750,000.

Shiite militia violence, mainly against the country's Sunni minority, has ravaged Iraq since February when a Shiite holy place in Samara was blown up. The violence has been on the increase, but this is the first recent fighting that has pitted Shiites against one another on such a scale.

Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, a former Shiite activist, won the top government post last spring thanks in part to the support of al-Sadr, who controls 30 of the 275 seats in the national parliament and five Cabinet posts.

In a sign of al-Sadr's influence, al-Maliki this week ordered the release of one of the young cleric's top lieutenants, Sheik Mazen al-Sa'edi, who was arrested by U.S. troops in Baghdad for alleged links to sectarian death squads. He visited al-Sadr in the holy city of Najaf Wednesday, the day al-Sa'edi was freed.

Mahdi Army militiamen have long enjoyed a free rein in Amarah, the provincial capital of the southern province of Maysan. Militiamen in Amarah often summon local government officials for meetings at their offices. They roam the city with their weapons, manipulate the local police and set up checkpoints at will.

Since British troops left Amarah in August, residents say the militia has been involved in a series of killings, including slayings of merchants suspected of selling alcohol and women alleged to have engaged in behavior deemed immoral by militiamen.

At least 15 people, including five militiamen, one policeman and two bystanders, had been killed in clashes since Friday, Dr. Zamil Shia, director of Amarah's department of health, said by telephone from the city, about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad.

The fighting also wounded at least 59 people — including 22 civilians — according to Riyadh Saed, the duty physician at the city's main hospital.

Fighting broke out Thursday after Qassim al-Tamimi, the provincial head of police intelligence and a leading member of the rival Shiite Badr Brigade militia, was killed by a roadside bomb. In retaliation, his family kidnapped the teenage brother of the Mahdi Army commander in Amarah, Sheik Fadel al-Bahadli, to demand the hand-over of al-Tamimi's killers.

Amarah, a major population center in the resource-rich yet impoverished south, is a traditional center of Shiite defiance to successive Iraqi regimes. Its famed marshlands were drained by former dictator Saddam Hussein during the 1990s in reprisal for the city's role in the Shiite uprising that blazed through the region after the 1991 Gulf War.

The showdown between the Mahdi and Badr militias has the potential to develop into an all-out conflict between the heavily armed groups and their political sponsors, both with large blocs in parliament and backers of al-Maliki's ruling coalition. It also could shatter the unity of Iraq's majority Shiites at a time when an enduring Sunni insurgency shows no signs of abating.

The U.N. refugee agency said at least 914,000 Iraqis have fled their homes since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, more than a third in response to the sectarian bloodshed this year.

The chief military spokesman in Iraq said a two-month-old security operation in Baghdad had failed to meet targets while the monthly death toll for American troops in October had climbed to 74, putting October on course to be the deadliest for U.S. forces in nearly two years.

"The violence is indeed disheartening," Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell said Thursday in Baghdad.

Sunni insurgents battling U.S. forces to the north made a further show of force on Friday, with masked gunmen linked to the main Sunni insurgent group, the Mujahedeen Shura Council, staging a military style parade through the cities of Haqlaniyah and Haditha in the western province of Anbar.

The gunmen urged residents to back an announcement by the group on Sunday that it has established an Islamic state made up of six provinces, including Baghdad.

That followed a similar demonstration Thursday by masked gunmen in Ramadi, a Sunni stronghold in Anbar, where U.S. forces have taken heavy losses against the insurgents.

Associated Press writer Hamza Hendawi contributed to this report.