BAGHDAD—Powerful Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is expected to extend a six-month truce by his militia, two officials in his movement said on Thursday, a move Washington says is important for maintaining security gains.
They said Sadr had issued a declaration to preachers to be read during midday prayers on Friday at mosques affiliated with the cleric, whose militia was blamed for fuelling a cycle of sectarian violence with minority Sunni Muslims in 2006 and 2007.
"The general idea is that there will be an extension," said one senior official in Sadr's movement in Baghdad, who declined to go into detail on the declaration.
"Sayed (Sadr) has distributed sealed envelopes to the imams of the mosques ... They cannot be opened before tomorrow," he said.
Another senior official in Sadr's movement, speaking from the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf, where Sadr's has offices, said the cleric would likely extend the truce for another six months.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media about the ceasefire.
Many Mehdi Army members and Sadrist political leaders say they want to end the truce, accusing Iraqi security forces of exploiting it to detain activists, especially in southern Iraq, where rival Shi'ite factions are locked in a struggle for power.
U.S. officials say the ceasefire has helped to sharply reduce violence in Iraq, including against their own forces, and that an extension of the truce would be widely welcomed.
"When Moqtada al Sadr called a ceasefire, a large number of those Shi'ite extremists ... stopped shooting at us," Major-General Rick Lynch, who commands 20,000 U.S. troops south of Baghdad, told Reuters in an interview last week.
"A good portion of the attacks against our forces were (carried out by) Shi'ite militia. Now that's not happening. We think this ceasefire is particularly helpful and we hope it stays in place."
Waiting for a Sign
Sadr's spokesman, Salah al-Ubaidi, has previously said the cleric would issue a statement by midnight on Saturday if he was renewing the truce, while silence would mean it was over.
Distribution of Sadr's statement to religious leaders may be a sign the anti-American cleric will renew the truce.
Sadr called the truce in August after clashes between his militia, Iraqi security forces and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, a rival Shi'ite faction, in the holy city of Kerbala. The move was seen as an attempt to reassert his control over unruly elements of his militia.
Besides involvement in tit-for-tat sectarian attacks, the Mehdi Army has battled Iraqi government forces and rival Shi'ite factions and waged two uprisings against U.S. forces in 2004.
The U.S. military says violence in Iraq has dropped 60 percent since June 2007, thanks to Sadr's ceasefire, 30,000 extra U.S. soldiers, and Sunni Arab tribal leaders turning against al Qaeda.
Officials say Sunni Islamist al Qaeda in Iraq is the biggest threat to peace, despite a series of offensives to deny its militants sanctuary in northern Iraq and disrupt its operations. It says it has killed hundreds of al Qaeda operatives.
U.S. officials accuse al Qaeda of resorting to desperate measures, including recruiting children, after being kicked out of bastions in western Anbar province and in and around Baghdad.
U.S. military spokesman Rear Admiral Greg Smith said on Thursday the military did not know if two women who carried out bombings at two Baghdad markets that killed 100 people this month were mentally handicapped, casting doubt on earlier assertions by U.S. and Iraqi officials.
Claims that al Qaeda had duped two women suffering from Down's syndrome, a genetic disorder, into carrying the explosives, provoked outrage, with Washington saying it showed the group would stop at nothing to spread violence.
"We do know that both women had been treated for mental health issues. At this time we are not in a position to judge whether or not the women suffered from additional mental challenges," Smith said in a statement to Reuters.
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