Whoa. Mookie al Sadr's top lieutenant assasinated

Just more after Friday prayers action from the Religion of Peace. Of course, the US is being blamed for it - I would expect nothing less. Here's my deal. I wouldn't be surprised if Mookie himself had a hand in it - just to rile up his troops and stir the shi%. Don't think so? Well, I wouldn't put it past Iran to use a trick like this to try and incite more violence in the region, either.

Gunmen shot dead a top aide to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Iraq's holy city of Najaf on Friday, sparking fury among his followers and calls for calm by senior Sadrists.

The attack comes as Sadr's Mahdi Army militia is engaged in deadly clashes with Iraqi security forces in their eastern Baghdad bastion of Sadr City and in the southern port city of Basra.

Riyad al-Nuri, director of the Sadr movement's office in Najaf, was shot dead near his home as he returned from weekly Muslim prayers, Najaf police chief Major General Abdul Karim Mustafa said.


Police immediately imposed an indefinite curfew in the shrine city, while Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki strongly condemned the attack and the Sadr movement blamed US forces "and others working with them."

A Sadr official in Najaf, Haider al-Turfi, said the gunmen were waiting for 37-year-old Nuri near his home in the city's eastern neighbourhood of Al-Adala.

"When he arrived from the prayers, they opened fire on him, killing him instantly," Turfi said.

State television Al-Iraqiya said Maliki had condemned "the brutal assassination" of Nuri, while Sadr spokesman Salah al-Obeidi told AFP that the cleric had demanded a probe into the killing.

"Moqtada al-Sadr has urged the Iraqi government to conduct a detailed investigation into the killing and to find those who committed the act," Obeidi said.

He said Sadr had also ordered the movement to hold condolence meetings at its offices in Najaf, in Baghdad, Qom in Iran and Damascus in Syria.

An angry Obeidi accused US forces of being behind the killing of Nuri. "The occupation forces and others who are working with them are responsible for this assassination," Obeidi said.

He urged Sadr's followers, however, to remain "calm" following the assassination.

Nuri was a senior leader in the cleric's movement and his sister had been married to Sadr's brother Murtada who was killed in 1999.

Sadr's supporters in Najaf too expressed their anger at the killing.

"This killing will bring chaos to the country," said Kadhim Wayid, 50, a government employee. "The assassination of any person not carrying a weapon is a major crime."

Nazar Ahmed, 26, who is self-employed, said Sadrists were under attack on all fronts.

"Brutal crimes have increased recently against us from many quarters," he said. "They don't like the Sadr movement's stand against the (US) occupation. But we will not submit, even if they kill us all."

Mahdi Army militiamen have been battling Iraqi troops in the two Shiite strongholds since March 25, when Maliki ordered a crackdown on militiamen in Basra.

At least 700 people have been killed in the fighting, which began in Basra but quickly spread to Shiite areas of Baghdad and other regions of Iraq.

The battles subsided after Sadr pulled his fighters off the streets on March 30, but fighting erupted in greater fury a week later in Sadr City when Iraqi and US forces began new operations in the sprawling township.

Fighting on Friday was sporadic in both Baghdad and Basra, residents and Iraqi officials said, while US and British commanders said that at least 12 people were in killed in fresh air strikes in the two flashpoint areas.

On Friday afternoon, a mortar hit a bakery in Sadr City, killing two people and wounding five, an Iraqi security official said.

Sadr's movement said on Thursday it was "under siege" in Sadr City and warned that its militia was ready to take up arms again, breaking a ceasefire ordered by Sadr last August.

The US military says its raids are targeting "criminals" firing rockets and mortars into Baghdad neighbourhoods and at the fortified Green Zone where the Iraqi government and the US embassy are based.

In the latest attack, a Katyusha rocket fell near the Palestine Hotel in the centre of Baghdad on Friday, killing three people and wounding seven, an Iraqi security official said.