Iraq's Al-Sadr warns of 'open' war

Iraqi troops move into the northern Hayaniyah district of the southern Iraqi city Basra. Hardline Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threatened on Saturday to declare

Hardline Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr threatened on Saturday to declare "open war" if the crackdown by Iraqi and US forces against his loyalists is not stopped.

"I am giving my last warning and my word to the Iraqi government to take the path of peace and stop violence against its own people, otherwise it will be a government of destruction," Al-Sadr said in a statement his office issued in the holy city of Najaf.

"If it does not stop the militias that have infiltrated the government, then we will declare a war until liberation."

Al-Sadr also lashed out at the Iraqi government's alliance with the US military.

"The occupation has made us target of its planes, tanks, air strikes and snipers. Without our support this government would not have been formed. But with its alliance with the occupier it [government] is not independent and sovereign as we would like it to be," the cleric said.

Iraqi and US forces have been engaged in fierce street battles with Shi'ite militiamen since March 25 in Al-Sadr's Baghdad bastion of Sadr City and in the southern city of Basra.

The firefights erupted after Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki ordered assaults on Shi'ite militiamen in Basra. The crackdown triggered clashes across Shi'ite areas of Iraq, including the sprawling district of Sadr City.

Hundreds of people have been killed and scores wounded since then. On Saturday, at least 13 more people were killed in Sadr City, while Iraqi troops took control of a Sadr stronghold in Basra.

Troops entered the northern Hayaniyah district of Basra and took control in an operation lasting several hours, Interior Ministry spokesman Major General Abdel Karim Khalaf said.

"We launched an operation in the morning. There was some exchange of fire. The operation is now over in Hayaniyah without any strong resistance," Khalaf told newswire AFP.

In his statement, addressed to the people of Iraq, Sadr lashed out at human rights groups.

"Gaza was surrounded and everybody kept quiet. And now it is [Sadr] City and Basra and everybody is quiet. Where are the human rights. Where are the laws you want to adopt for freedom and democracy?" Al-Sadr asked.

The cleric declared that he belonged to Iraq and vowed to continue to fight for the people of Iraq.

"They accuse me of belonging to Iran... but I belong to only Iraq. I belong to the will of my people," he said.

Al-Sadr's latest salvo came as US and Iraqi forces are building a wall through Sadr City in a bid to stop militiamen firing rockets at the heavily fortified Green Zone, the seat of the government and US embassy.

A barrier of varying height is being constructed along the main road separating the southern and northern sides of the impoverished district of some two million people.

The wall of cement blocks, some up to three metres high, "will enclose [the southern section] in order to control access in and out of the area," US Lieutenant Colonel Steven Stover told AFP.

The spokesman added that this was a plan of the Iraqi government. "We don't operate independently."

Resident Ali Muthanna, 20, said the wall "will help to maintain security but would impede the movement of people".

Iraqi and US forces have built hundreds of such concrete barriers across Baghdad in a bid to thwart attacks by Sunni insurgents or Shi'ite militiamen.

Residents complain that such walls exacerbate tensions but US commanders insist they are intended to protect the public and have been planned with the help of the Iraqi government.

Al-Sadr's movement earlier Saturday reacted angrily to the new wall.

"Building such barriers will isolate the citizens" of Sadr City, said Sadrist spokesman Salah Al-Obeidi in Najaf.

"This barrier aims to cut off the district from other important institutions."

Tehran's ambassador to Baghdad, Hasan Kazemi Qomi, slammed the US military for bombing Sadr City.

"We are encouraging the [Iraqi] government to fight the outlaws. But we are against the way the Americans are implementing the policy by bombing and closing down Sadr City," Al-Qomi told reporters.

"In this way people are suffering. The wrong policy of Americans by bombing innocent people will yield bad results."

Meanwhile, a leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq has announced a campaign in which the group will "offer the head of an American" as a gift to US President George W. Bush, according to an audiotape made public by the Site Intelligence Group.

Abu Hamza Al-Muhajir, better known as Abu Ayyub Al-Masri, said mujahedeen, or holy warriors, would "offer the head of an American as a gift to the deceitful Bush, in any manner [they] see fit".

The campaign was announced in "celebration" of Bush announcing that 4,000 Americans had died in the war in Iraq.

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