Al-Sadr’s forces say they’re under siege in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Two Shiite militia commanders said Thursday that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has stopped protecting radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Madhi Army under pressure from Washington, while the fighters described themselves as under siege in their Sadr City stronghold.

Perhaps indirectly bolstering this claim, U.S. and Iraqi forces arrested a top al-Sadr aide early today in Baghdad, an official in his office said.

Sheik Abdul-Hadi al-Darraji, al-Sadr’s media director in Baghdad, was captured in the eastern neighborhood of Baladiyat, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. military said special Iraqi army forces captured a high-level, illegally armed group leader during a raid in eastern Baghdad, but it did not identify the detainee.

It accused the suspect of involvement with assassinations and ties with the commanders of so-called death squads, which have been blamed for many of the killings that have left dozens of bodies, on the streets of Baghdad.

The militia commanders’ Thursday account of an organization now fighting for its very existence could represent a tactical and propaganda feint, but there was mounting evidence the militia is off balance and has ordered its gunmen to melt back into the population. To avoid capture, commanders report no longer using cell phones and fighters are removing their uniforms and hiding their weapons during the day.

During much of his nearly eight months in office, al-Maliki, who relies on al-Sadr’s political backing, has blocked or ordered an end to many U.S.-led operations against the Mahdi Army.

As recently as Oct. 31, al-Maliki won U.S. agreement to lift military blockades on Sadr City and another Shiite enclave where an American soldier was abducted.

But al-Maliki reportedly had a change of heart in late November while going into a meeting in Jordan with President Bush. It has since been disclosed that the Iraqi leader’s vision for a new security plan for Baghdad, to which Bush has committed 17,500 additional U.S. troops, was outlined in that meeting.

Al-Maliki is said by aides to have told Bush that he wanted the Iraqi army and police to be in the lead, but he would no longer interfere to prevent U.S. attempts to roll up the Mahdi Army.

Until February, much of the violence in Iraq was the work of al-Qaida in Iraq and allied Sunni organizations.

When al-Qaida bombers blew up the Golden Dome mosque, an important Shiite shrine in the mainly Sunni city of Samarra on Feb. 22, Shiite militiamen, especially the Mahdi Army fighters based in Sadr City, stormed out of the poor enclave in a drive for revenge.

The U.N. reported this week that the sectarian fighting killed more than 34,000 Iraqis last year, a figure that was criticized but not disputed Thursday by the Iraqi government.

With the Sunni threat in mind, evidence since the meetings in Jordan indicates that al-Maliki has kept his pledge to Bush that there would be no further interference in favor of Shiite militias.

On Wednesday, the prime minister said 400 Mahdi Army fighters had been detained in recent months, although an exact timeframe was not given.

The midlevel Mahdi Army commanders, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said at least five top commanders of similar standing were captured or killed in recent months, including one snatched in a night raid from his Sadr City hide-out on Tuesday. They refused to name him.

The third commander, who also spoke anonymously to protect his identity, said U.S.-led raiding parties were now also engaged in massive sweeps, having rounded up what he said was every male old enough to carry a gun in south Baghdad’s Um al-Maalef neighborhood Tuesday night.