Radical Cleric Demands Iraq Reinstate Fired Security Forces
By VOA News
14 April 2008
Radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is demanding the Iraqi government reinstate all security forces fired for abandoning their duty in recent fighting.
The powerful cleric said Monday the forces were obeying their religious leaders and should be honored for their devotion.
Iraqi officials dismissed 1,300 soldiers and policemen Sunday for refusing to fight against Shi'ite militias in Basra and other Shi'ite strongholds. Authorities have admitted some of the soldiers and police handed over their weapons and equipment to the militias, including al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered a crackdown on armed Shi'ite groups in Basra last month, triggering heavy fighting with al-Sadr's men.
Iraqi troops searching for criminals in Basra today rescued a British journalist kidnapped two months ago.
A defense ministry spokesman said the troops found Richard Butler by chance, after they were fired on from the house where the journalist was being held.
Butler was working for the U.S. television network CBS when gunmen seized him and his interpreter from a Basra hotel in early February. The interpreter was released days later.
Attacks in various parts of Iraq killed at least 21 people today.
In central Baghdad, Iraqi police said a roadside bomb killed at least five people and wounded nine others.
In northern Iraq, officials say a car bomb killed 12 members of the Kurdish peshmerga security force, which is part of the Iraqi army. Two others were wounded in the attack near Rabiaa, west of Mosul near the Syrian border.
Officials say three people were killed and at least 10 others wounded in the northern city of Tal Afar when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a funeral.
Also, the U.S. military says a roadside bomb killed an American soldier in Iraq's central province of Salahuddin.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
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