Iraq official orders probe of Karbala clashes

Anti-U.S. cleric warns of consequences if the probe is unfair. The stand-down of the Mahdi Army is at stake.
By Alexandra Zavis
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

9:14 AM PDT, September 2, 2007

BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki ordered an investigation today into fighting that killed more than 50 people during a religious pilgrimage in Karbala last week, following complaints by an influential cleric that the local authorities' handling of the case has been biased.

The office of firebrand Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr had threatened unspecified consequences if the government did not conduct a fair probe, raising the possibility that he could reverse a decision to suspend the operations of his powerful Mahdi Army militia.

U.S. officials had called the stand-down "encouraging," saying it could allow the military to focus on fighting Sunni Arab insurgents, blamed for many of the deadliest attacks in Iraq.

Tuesday's clashes in which members of Iraq's two biggest Shiite militias faced off amid more than 1 million pilgrims, touched off retaliatory attacks in Baghdad and threatened to deepen violence across the Shiite-dominated south, where rival factions are competing for influence as British forces draw down.

Sadr denied that his militia was involved in the clashes and ordered his fighters to halt activities for six months, while his officials root out what he described as rogue elements that are bringing the Mahdi Army into disrepute.

Despite that decision, Sadr's office complained today that his followers were being unfairly targeted by security officials in Karbala.

At a news conference in the holy city of Najaf, spokesman Sheik Salah Ubaidi claimed that more than 200 of the cleric's followers had been arrested. He also alleged that some of the policemen involved in investigating the clashes had participated in them against the Mahdi Army.

Provincial authorities in Karbala did not immediately respond to the claims.

Many Iraqi policemen and soldiers in Karbala are believed to be loyal to the rival Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council movement and its allied Badr militia. Tuesday's fighting erupted when a Supreme Council leader was waved through a security cordon in the shrine city, ahead of a crowd of waiting pilgrims and Mahdi militiamen.

"We warn the government and the executive authorities in Karbala that if there is not a fair, neutral and quick investigation, the Sadr office will be forced to take decisions outside the expectations of the government," Ubaidi told reporters.

Within hours, Maliki's office had announced the formation of a committee assigned to investigate the clashes "as quickly as possible." The brief statement did not specify the makeup of the panel but said it would "perform its task with professionalism and without bias to any side."

Rear Adm. Mark Fox, a U.S. military spokesman, said American forces were providing forensic and other technical assistance but that the investigation would be lead by the Iraqi government.

He added that the U.S. military's own raids against Shiite militants would continue as long as the fighters persisted in targeting U.S. and Iraqi government forces. Sadr's official spokesman in Najaf, Sheik Ahmed Shibani, warned last week that the stand-down did not mean "stopping resistance against the occupation."

The U.S. command has said that attacks by Iranian-backed Shiite militants now account for more U.S. casualties than Sunni insurgents. Commanders accuse elements of Sadr's militia of using armor-piercing munitions supplied by Iranian agents against their forces.

In other developments today, a car bomb exploded at the entrance to Baghdad's northern Kadhimiya neighborhood, home to a revered Shiite shrine, killing nine people and injuring 15, police said.

North of the capital, a suicide bomber drove a car packed with explosives into the gate of an Iraqi military barracks in Taji, killing two soldiers and injuring eight others, police said.