Baathists Plan Convention in Damascus

US moves on Sadr Aide

Bombings Wrack Baghdad, Mosul

Baathists Plan Convention in Damascus

US and Iraqi troops arrested Sadr aide Abdul Hadi Darraji in East Baghdad at midnight Iraqi time last night. The Sadr movement maintains he is just a spokesman and is not involved in militia operations. The US accuses him of running private religious courts in which people are punished for being lax with regard to implementation of Islamic law. Young cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is enormously popular in the Shiite south and a US confrontation with him could throw that region into turmoil.

Mahdi Army figures in Sadr City say they are under siege and that five commanders have been killed or captured in the past week.

UpdateMuqtada al-Sadr has sent his family into hiding in anticipation of an American crackdown on his movement. He appears to anticipate an attempt to arrest or kill him. He maintains that the crackdown has been underway for a month, with 400 of his followers arrested. He is accused of maintaining a private militia, the Mahdi Army, that is implicated in death squad activity against Sunni Arabs. Local Shiites often see the militia as a kind of neighborhood watch that keeps them safe from Sunni incursions when the central government does not.