Al-Sadr delivers his 'final warning'

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BAGHDAD (AP) — Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr gave a "final warning" to the Iraqi government yesterday to halt a U.S.-Iraqi crackdown against his followers or he would declare "open war until liberation."

A full-blown uprising by Sheik al-Sadr, who led two rebellions against U.S.-led forces in 2004, could lead to a dramatic increase in violence in Iraq at a time when the Sunni extremist group al Qaeda in Iraq appears poised for new attacks after suffering severe blows last year.

Sheik al-Sadr's warning appeared on his Web site as Iraq's Shi'ite-dominated government claimed success in a new push against Shi'ite militants in the southern city of Basra. Fighting claimed 14 more lives in Sadr City, the Baghdad stronghold of Sheik al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, also a Shi'ite, has ordered Sheik al-Sadr to disband the Mahdi Army, Iraq's biggest Shi'ite militia, or face a ban from politics.

In the statement, Sheik al-Sadr lashed back, accusing the government of selling out to the Americans and of branding his followers as criminals.

Sheik al-Sadr, who is thought to be in Iran, said he had tried to defuse tensions last August by declaring a unilateral truce, only to see the government respond by closing his offices and "resorting to assassinations."

"So I am giving my final warning ... to the Iraqi government ... to take the path of peace and abandon violence against its people," Sheik al-Sadr said. "If the government does not refrain ... we will declare an open war until liberation."

U.S. officials have acknowledged that Sheik al-Sadr's truce was instrumental in reducing violence last year. But the truce is in tatters after Iraqi forces launched an offensive last month against "criminal gangs and militias" in the southern city of Basra.

The conflict spread rapidly to Baghdad, where Shi'ite militiamen based in Sadr City fired rockets at the U.S.-protected Green Zone, killing at least four Americans.

U.S. officials say many of the rockets fired at the Green Zone were manufactured in Iran.