Sadr Spokesman: U.S. out to provoke armed confrontation

An Iraqi child holds a framed photo of Muqtada al-Sadr, Imam Ali and Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr during yesterday's prayers in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's political movement accused Washington on Saturday of trying to provoke a confrontation, after the arrest of a top aide to the militia leader, who is an ally of Iraq's Shi'ite prime minister.

Abdul-Hadi al-Darraji, a spokesman for Sadr, was among at least three people arrested by U.S. and Iraqi troops in a midnight raid on Sadr City, a stronghold of Sadr's Mehdi Army in northeast Baghdad where U.S. forces rarely venture.

Abdul Mahdi Mtiri, a member of the Sadrists' political committee, said Iraqi officials had promised Darraji would be released. "We don't know how serious this promise is because so far he has not been released," Mtiri told Reuters.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told Iraqiya state television he did not expect him to be released on Saturday.

"The matter is not in the hands of the Iraqi government. The Americans arrested him and they're investigating him and when they're finished they will release him," said Dabbagh, who said on Friday the operation had the full backing of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Read the rest at Reuters/Alternet

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