Iraq's Sadr bloc says aide killed by US forces

NAJAF, Iraq, Dec 27 (Reuters) A spokesman for radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's bloc accused US forces today of killing a senior Sadrist official near the Iraqi city of Najaf and called for a government investigation.

The US military said Iraqi army troops with US advisers raided the home of a man who was implicated in a bomb attack on a police chief in October. A US statement said a US soldier shot the man dead after seeing him point his rifle at an Iraqi soldier during the raid.

Nassar al-Rubaei, head of the Sadrist bloc in parliament, accused ''occupation forces'' of storming the home of Saheb al-Amiri at dawn and killing him in front of this family.

''We call on the government to launch an investigation,'' Rubaei told a news conference in Baghdad.

US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Garver said the raid was ordered and planned by Iraqi authorities.

''They conducted that operation on their own. There were coalition advisers there but it was an Iraqi planned and executed operation,'' Garver told Reuters.

The US statement did not identify the man who was killed by name but Garver said it referred to the same incident.

US forces officially handed over security control of the province to Iraqi forces this month and have withdrawn all but a handful of their troops from the area.

The US statement described the man killed as ''a suspected improvised explosive device facilitator and cell leader''.

The Sadr bloc, which comprises 30 members of parliament and six cabinet ministers, have been boycotting the unity government of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki after Maliki meet with US President George W Bush last month in Jordan.

The Sadr movement has repeatedly called for the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, while Washington has singled out militias loyal to Sadr as the greatest threat to security in Iraq, accusing them of sectarian killings.

The boycott and sectarian attacks blamed on militias have put the future of Maliki's government at risk and talks have been underway between Shi'ite Alliance officials and top clerics in Najaf to save the fractious coalition.

A recent study by the International Crisis Group said militias loyal to Sadr and to a rival Shi'ite faction were engaged in a ''dangerous tug-of-war'' in the holy city of Najaf. Najaf is the home of Iraq's Shi'ite clerical establishment.

REUTERS PB BD1747