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Al-Sadr's aide shot dead
11/04/2008 19:18 - (SA)
Najaf - Gunmen shot dead a top aide to radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Iraq's holy city of Najaf on Friday, sparking anger among his followers as they battle government forces on two fronts.
Riyad al-Nuri, director of the Sadr movement's office in Najaf, was shot dead near his home as he returned from his weekly Muslim prayers, Najaf police chief Major General Abdul Karim Mustafa said.
Police immediately imposed an indefinite curfew in the shrine city following the shooting, 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.
Sadr's spokesperson in Najaf, Salah al-Obeidi, lashed out at the US military. "The occupation forces and others who are working with them are responsible for this assassination," Obeidi told AFP.
"Those who have done this want the situation in Iraq to be unstable and want the fighting between the Sadrists and Iraqi forces to continue," he added. "This action serves the interest of the occupier."
Under siege
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.
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.
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.
British spokesperson Major Tom Holloway told AFP that six insurgents were killed by US aircraft in Basra early on Friday when US aircraft homed in on the northern Al-Hayaniyah district after identifying a group of militants.
"The air strike was launched after positively identifying a mortar team that was engaging the Iraqi troops on the ground," Holloway 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.
- AFP
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