Militia leader urges calm after Baghdad violence

[sabra]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO954156.htm

Militia leader urges calm after Baghdad violence

BAGHDAD, July 9 (Reuters) - The leader of a Shi'ite militia in Iraq appealed for calm after Shi'ite gunmen stormed a Sunni Muslim neighbourhood in Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 42 people in the city's bloodiest street killings yet.

"I urge all government and popular forces to exercise restraint and take responsibility in front of God first and society secondly," cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose supporters are part of the national unity government, said in a statement.

The Interior Ministry said Shi'ite militias shot dozens of people in western Jihad district, pulling some from cars at fake police checkpoints and killing them close to a Shi'ite mosque where a car bomb had killed three people on Saturday.

Police and Sunni politicians blamed rogue police commandos and Sadr's Mehdi Army militia for the killings. Officials from Sadr's movement denied any involvement.

[High Plains]

1. Now he wants calm? After his guys massacred 40 people yesterday.

[Eugene]

2. He did this before.

Al Sadr has demonstrated that he can turn the violence on and
he can turn it off as it suits him. He can turn his Mehdi Army
against his political rivals, and now that his people are now
part of the Iraqi ruling coalition, the U.S. may not be able
to stop him very easily.