SHEIKH Hazem al-Araji, rebel Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Baghdad lieutenant, and his brother were arrested overnight by US-backed Iraqi security forces, a relative and fellow Sadr supporter said today. Iraqi national guardsmen barged into their homes in the capital at 2am (8am AEST), breaking down the doors and firing off a couple of stun grenades, a second brother of Araji, named Kemal, told AFP. "Their only crime is that they are both part of the Sadr movement," said Sadr movement official Naim Kaabi, blaming obscure interest groups for spoiling attempts to end clashes between Sadr loyalists and US-Iraqi government troops. "We protest against Araji's arrest and are waiting for the government or the Americans to tell us why he has been detained," said Kaabi, an engineer.
Prime Minister Iyad Allawi had "promised to stop arrests and release prisoners, so we were surprised that the opposite is happening," Kaabi said. Asked who he thought the spoilers might be, he suggested they were political forces within the government opposed to resolving the conflict or perhaps Americans looking for reasons to justify a longer stay in the country. For their part, the US military said late yesterday that tribal sheikhs in Sadr City were in talks with the Baghdad City Council over a 12-point plan to restore peace to the Shiite slums, home to over two million people. Last month, Sadr pulled his Mehdi Army militia out of Iraq's holy cities of Najaf and Kufa on the order of Shiite spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. But his fighters have continued to clash with US troops in Baghdad. Forty people were killed in Sadr City on September 7. Kaabi denied there was any link between the arrests in Baghdad and incidents in the southern port city of Basra yesterday, where Mehdi Army militiamen clashed with British soldiers. In April, Araji was briefly detained by US soldiers after giving an interview. |