BAGHDAD – Iraqi security forces arrested three locally prominent supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr yesterday as part of a crackdown on Shiite militias in the southern city of Amara, police said.
All three men are members of the provincial council in Maysan province, of which Amara is the capital. Police said they were suspected of supporting Shiite militias.
Police said the three were Abdul-Jabar Wahid Humaidi, head of the council; and Fadhil Niama and Abdul-Latif Jawad, leaders of the council's security and health committees. Police spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
A spokesman for al-Sadr, Sheik Salah al-Obaidi, criticized the arrests, saying the Iraqi government was targeting the cleric's movement and violating the spirit of agreements made in talks with the government in the run-up to the Amara operation.
“The security forces broke in their houses and arrested them in front of their families in an uncivilized manner,” al-Obaidi told The Associated Press, describing the arrests of Humaidi and Niama.
Sadrists had promised to cooperate with the Shiite-led government's operation in Amara, about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, as long as Iraqi troops did not make arrests without warrants or commit other human rights violations. Al-Obaidi said yesterday that the government was not sticking to the agreement.
“In fact, there are violations in the security plan in Maysan, but we are adhering to not confronting the government,” al-Obaidi said.
An arrest warrant was issued for the provincial governor of Maysan, Adil Mhodir, MCT News Service reported. Although Iraqi soldiers raided his home, the governor hasn't been arrested; 30 of his security guards were detained, the report said. The Maysan governor and his security men are followers of al-Sadr.
The operation – after similar maneuvers since March in Basra in the south and later in Baghdad's Sadr City district – is part of a campaign by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to assert government control in areas of the Shiite south where militias have held sway for years.
The United States blames much of the violence in the south on “special groups” that it says have split off from al-Sadr and are being supported by Iran – a claim denied by Tehran. Iraqi security forces arrested five of these militants around central Iraq on Saturday, the U.S. military said.
One of the men arrested in the Bayaa area of Baghdad was an Iraqi police officer who the United States said leaked information to other “special groups criminals” in the area.
“The government of Iraq and Iraqi security forces are determined to pursue all criminals and provide a secure and stable environment for the people of Iraq,” U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Neil Harper said in a statement yesterday.
