Bush vows to arrest Iraq cleric to quell violence

2.15pm

US President George W Bush has vowed to arrest a radical Shi'ite Muslim cleric leading spiralling anti-US violence that has sparked fears of all-out war in Iraq.

"We just can't let (the violence) stand," Bush said today (NZ time) as US authorities branded Moqtada al-Sadr an outlaw and US helicopters blasted a Baghdad district where the cleric has a stronghold and sent in tanks to quell the violence.

Bush said he would not retreat from Baghdad, but a new opinion poll as he campaigns for re-election in November showed support among US voters for his handling of Iraq had fallen to a new low of 40 per cent -- down 19 points since mid-January.

As well as battling Sadr's Shi'ite supporters, US forces mounted a major operation in the town of Falluja, west of Baghdad, as part of a long struggle to halt guerrilla attacks in Sunni Muslim areas in central Iraq.

Exposing divisions in Iraq's Shi'ite majority, Sadr turned down an appeal by the powerful Shi'ite establishment to renounce violence.

An aide to Mohammad Bahr al-Uloum, a member of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, said Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, widely regarded as Iraq's most powerful cleric and a rival of Sadr's, supported the appeal.

Sadr, backed by armed followers, had taken refuge in Iraq's holiest shrine, the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf, south of Baghdad, a Shi'ite religious source told Reuters. The source said nearby streets had been closed off by members of Sadr's banned militia.

"There's no way Sayyid Moqtada will turn himself in," said a Sadr supporter outside the group's office in the Baghdad slum district of Sadr City. "If the Americans try to arrest him, we will all explode," said the man, who gave his name as Haider.

US authorities said an Iraqi investigating judge issued the arrest warrant for Sadr several months ago in connection with the killing of another Shi'ite cleric in April last year.

"In this particular incident with Sadr, this is one person who's deciding that rather than allow democracy to flourish, he's going to exercise force," Bush told reporters in North Carolina.

"The message to the Iraqi citizens is they don't have to fear that America will turn and run," Bush said.

Sadr issued a defiant statement after being labelled an outlaw by Iraq's US Governor Paul Bremer: "If that means breaking the law of the American tyranny...I'm proud of that and that is why I'm in revolt."

The 30-year-old cleric commands wide support among the poorest of Shi'ites, who rally to his anti-US rhetoric and promises of power for a community oppressed by Saddam Hussein.

His militia -- the Mehdi Army -- is thought to be several thousand strong.

Sadr supporters lit fires around his office in Sadr City in an attempt to create a smokescreen against US helicopters prowling the skies. About six US tanks were deployed nearby.

On Sunday, 48 Iraqis, eight US soldiers and one Salvadoran soldier were killed in fighting in Baghdad and Najaf between Sadr supporters and US-led forces.

In Falluja, a Sunni bastion for Saddam where four American security men were killed last week, residents reported heavy firing and a hospital doctor said five people had been killed and three wounded.

US troops enforced a night-time curfew and sealed roads around the town. The US military said it had shut the nearby Baghdad-Amman highway indefinitely.

The violence complicates the task of UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who is in Baghdad to discuss US plans for a June 30 handover of power to Iraqis and future elections.

Gulf state Qatar, a US ally, said it feared a civil war breaking out in Iraq.

"The developments in Iraq in the last few days are alarming and we fear that we are facing a civil war in Iraq reminding me of what happened in Afghanistan and Lebanon," said Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani.

The US military said it believed it had enough troops in Iraq to deal with the upsurge in violence, but in planning for "worse case" scenarios it was looking at making more troops available if the situation worsened.

"We have asked the staff to at least take a look and see what forces are available out there in a quick response mode in the event that they should be needed," an official told reporters at the Pentagon.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq