BAGHDAD, 27 May 2004 — US troops seized a commander of Moqtada Sadr’s Mehdi Army yesterday as battles raged in Najaf while confusion reigned over who will be in charge after Washington hands over to an Iraqi government in five weeks.
US officials also offered conflicting signals about who will lead that interim administration. A senior official in the outgoing US-led authority in Baghdad denied that Hussain Shahristani, a nuclear scientist jailed by Saddam Hussein, would be prime minister. Officials in Washington had earlier said he would be.
US tanks and airborne gunships pounded fighter positions before dawn around Najaf. Doctors said at least nine people were killed and 29 wounded around an ancient cemetery. A senior US military official put the death toll among the Mehdi Army’s untrained young fighters in the dozens, possibly close to 50.
A spokesman for Sadr said a close aide and relative of Sadr, Riyad Al-Noury, was seized in a night raid on his home in the city. Three other aides evaded capture in similar operations.
The US military spokesman in Iraq, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, confirmed the arrest. He said Noury was wanted in connection with the murder of Shiite cleric Abdul Majid Al-Khoei in April 2003 and would be handed over to Iraqi authorities.
An attack on a busload of Russian power station engineers that killed two of them in Baghdad prompted their company to say it would pull out of Iraq — a setback for efforts to rebuild the country’s infrastructure and a reminder of the challenges Iraq’s new leaders face in organizing elections in the new year.
President George W. Bush has said violence may increase during the transition to Iraqi rule, which the United States outlined in a draft UN resolution presented on Monday. “Sadr certainly has one less lieutenant today than he did yesterday. One more person associated with the murder of Ayatollah Majid Al-Khoei is now going to face Iraqi justice,” Kimmitt told a news conference in Baghdad.
US forces say Sadr must also face the Iraqi courts for his part in the same killing. Sadr denies being involved.
Sadr’s militia launched the uprising last month across southern Iraq, home to most of the long oppressed 60 percent Shiite majority. They are now mainly confined to Najaf, nearby Kufa and Karbala, 50 km away. US forces would like to isolate him from the Shiite community. But while he has irritated many Shiite elders he remains popular with millions, especially the young.
