U.S. forces release Iraqi cleric's aide

BAGHDAD, Oct 18 (Reuters) - The U.S. military on Wednesday released a senior aide to a pro-government Shi'ite cleric and militia leader after the Iraqi government requested he be freed, the U.S. military and the Iraqi government said on Wednesday.

Sheikh Mazin al-Saedi, an aide to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, had been detained by U.S. military forces during a raid on his Baghdad house on Tuesday along with four men.

"He has been released at the request of the government of Iraq," Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Garver, a spokesman for the U.S. military, told Reuters.

U.S. commanders and officials have been demanding that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki rein in militias and their networks, blamed for some of the worst sectarian violence gripping Iraq.

Garver said Saedi had been detained in security operations U.S. forces are conducting in Baghdad. He would not say if Saedi, who heads Sadr's office in the Baghdad neighbourhood of Shula, had been detained on suspicion of any particular crime.

"At this point we are not making more comments," he said.

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