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Sadr Cancels Million-Man Rally in Baghdad
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"If the public interest requires the lifting of the freeze to apply our goals, doctrine, faith, principles and patriotism, we shall do it later," Sadr said.
In a move that may defuse some of the tension between the Sadrists and the government, Maj. Gen. Raid Shakir Jawdat, chief of the Karbala police force, announced late Tuesday night that 428 Sadrists detained in the past few weeks would be released because of insufficient evidence against them.
Shiite militants in northeastern Baghdad continued Tuesday to direct rocket and mortar fire at the heavily fortified Green Zone, the seat of the U.S. military and the Iraqi government. Qassim Attah, an Iraqi military spokesman, said at least 145 rockets and mortar rounds have been launched in the past two weeks, killing 48 civilians.
The Iraqi government banned cars, motorcycles and bicycles from 5 a.m. Wednesday until midnight to prevent further violence on the anniversary of the city's fall. Also Tuesday, a U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle fired a Hellfire rocket at a group of armed men with rocket-propelled grenades and a mortar tube, killing 10 of them and wounding two, the U.S. military said.
"We are targeting all the criminals who are ignoring Sadr's cease-fire pledge," said Maj. Mark Cheadle, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Baghdad. "We are doing and will continue to do whatever is necessary to protect the Iraqi people from these bad guys."
Special correspondents Saad Sarhan in Hilla and Najaf and Naseer Nouri, Saad al-Izzi, Dalya Hassan and K.I. Ibrahim in Baghdad contributed to this report.
