American and British forces in Iraq began a joint operation on Saturday targeting Jeish Al-Mahdi, an armed organization affiliated with the influential Shi’ite cleric Muqta’da A-‘Sadr, the London-based daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat reported.
The joint operation took place in Ba’sra and in Madinat A-‘Sadr, a Shi’ite neighborhood in Baghdad. At least eight people were killed during the operation, eyewitnesses said. The operation in Ba’sra included an Iraqi elite unit, which succeeded in killing the local leader of Jeish Al-Mahdi, Wisam Abu Qadir.
Jeish Al-Mahdi is considered "the most dangerous accelerant of potentially self-sustaining sectarian violence in Iraq," according to the Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq Report, issued by the U.S. Defense Department in November 2006. It commands approximately 60,000 fighters, many of whom were trained in Iran prior to the demise of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Muqta’da A-‘Sadr also leads a political party which had won 30 out of 275 seats in the last parliamentary elections. His party held six ministerial posts until last month, when the party withdrew from the government. The move came as a result of Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki’s refusal to give a definite deadline for the foreign allied forces’ withdrawal from Iraq.
Last Friday A-‘Sadr made his first public appearance in five months, when he gave a sermon in the Al-Koufa Mosque in Madinat A-‘Sadr. The Shi’ite cleric resumed his call to the government not to extend the foreign military presence in Iraq. He stressed that it was not the government’s decision, but that of the people, saying 144 out of 275 legislators had signed a petition calling to end foreign occupation.