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U.S. Lets Red Cross See Seized Iranians
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But both Wahab and Maliki, a former transportation minister, emphatically denied that they had met with Americans or that they had been removed from the Sadr bloc. "This is a fabrication and completely untrue," Wahab said in an interview. "What was said by some of the powerful people in the Sadr trend isn't accurate and its aim is to split the lines of the Sadr trend through these rumors and accusations."
Some American officials contend that Sadr's organization has fractured, following speculation that the cleric retreated to Iran and left his followers without decisive leadership. The mayor of the Baghdad slum of Sadr City, Rahim al-Darraji, was attacked by gunmen last month after meeting with U.S. military officials.
Sami al-Askari, a Shiite member of parliament who works closely with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said that the accusations against the two Sadr officials may be a convenient excuse to purge two members who have been at odds with others in the bloc. But he doubted Sadr was losing control.
"There are always differences between different factions but nevertheless Moqtada Sadr is the leader of this movement," he said.
Also Wednesday, the U.S. military said that an American soldier had been killed by small-arms fire in the southern outskirts of Baghdad while on a foot patrol Tuesday.
An engineer and four technicians working at the Mulla Abdullah power plant southwest of Kirkuk were killed when their car was struck by a roadside bomb, according to Maj. Abdul Jabbar al-Jubury of the Hawijah police station.
In southern Iraq, gunmen riding in pickup trucks kidnapped 22 shepherds in the Rufaiaa district near Karbala, an Interior Ministry official said. Meanwhile, 19 decapitated bodies arrived for burial in the southern city of Najaf, which is revered by Shiites. Religious officials in Najaf said the men were executed in a village in Diyala province because they were Shiites.
Special correspondent Saad Sarhan in Najaf and Waleed Saffar in Baghdad contributed to this report.
