Top Sadr official killed in US Iraqi raid

BAGHDAD, Feb 5 (Reuters) Iraqi and U S forces killed a top official of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's organisation in a raid on his home north of Baghdad, calling him a ''rogue leader'' of Sadr's Mehdi Army militia.

An official in Sadr's political office, Abdul-Mehdi al- Matiri, called the yesterday killing of Khadim al-Maliki in the village of Huweidar near Baquba an ''assassination''.

The US military said in a statement that Matiri had reportedly been responsible for attacks on US and Iraqi troops and was believed to have ''facilitated and directed numerous kidnappings, assassinations and other violence''.

They said two Iraqi soldiers shot him dead after storming a building and finding him armed with an assault rifle and ''displaying hostile intent''.

Iraqi police said Maliki had been the leader of Sadr's political office in Diyala province. In their report on the incident, they said he was shot when he tried to flee.

But Sadr official Matiri said he had not been shot but stabbed with a bayonet.

Also yesterday, gunmen killed Sheikh Khalil al-Maliki, a local leader of Sadr's movement, in a drive-by shooting in the southern city of Basra, police said.

Iraqi and US forces have seized or killed hundreds of followers of Sadr in recent weeks in a crackdown on militias in the capital and southern Iraq. British forces have also targeted Sadr officials in Basra, detaining a number in raids.

Senior Shi'ite officials close to Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki's government say US and Iraqi forces are mounting a campaign to seize leaders in the movement in an effort to quell sectarian violence that is pushing Iraq toward civil war.

Sadr himself, a populist young preacher with a mass following, has publicly distanced himself from violence blamed on his Mehdi Army supporters, whom the Pentagon has called the biggest threat to the security of Iraq.

Maliki, a Shi'ite Islamist, partly owes his position to support from Sadr's political movement and has been criticised by Washington for failing to disarm the Mehdi Army.

As he and US commanders prepare to deploy Iraqi and American reinforcements in a major security crackdown in Baghdad, Maliki has promised to quell Shi'ite militias as well as Sunni insurgents.

He said in January that 400 Mehdi Army members had recently been arrested in southern Iraq.

REUTERS DKA HT1505