NAJAF, Iraq (Agencies): Influential members within the movement loyal to Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have told him they do not want his Mehdi Army militia to extend a ceasefire when it expires this month, Sadr’s spokesman said on Monday.  The US military says the Shi’ite cleric’s announcement on Aug. 29 to freeze the activities of the feared Mehdi Army for six months has been vital to cutting violence. A return to hostilities could seriously jeopardise those security gains.  Sadr has been gauging the mood among senior figures and five main committees had reported back with their views on the truce, Sadr’s spokesman Salah al-Ubaidi, one of the cleric’s senior officials in the southern holy city of Najaf, told Reuters. 

Ubaidi said one of those committees, made up of Sadrist legislators in Baghdad, had recommended not renewing the ceasefire, citing problems with the authorities in Diwaniya, 180 km (112 miles) south of Baghdad.
“The parliament committee said they don’t want the ceasefire to remain. They want it lifted because of oppressive acts by security forces in Diwaniya,” he said without elaborating.
Recent statements from Sadr’s camp have indicated growing unhappiness that followers were being targeted by Iraqi forces.
Ubaidi said he was not authorised to say what the four other committees, representing political and media groups, provincial offices and imams, had recommended.
He said Sadr would issue a statement around Feb 23 if he had agreed to extend the ceasefire, declared following clashes between his supporters and police during a pilgrimage in the southern city of Kerbala. Silence would mean it was over.

“Either he will announce the extension of the freeze or he won’t say anything. If he keeps silent, that means the freeze has come to an end,” Ubaidi said, without saying exactly how it would be known the truce had formally ended.
Sadr, who led two uprisings against US forces in 2004, ordered the Mehdi Army to observe the ceasefire so he could reorganise the splintered militia. Up to then, Mehdi Army fighters were often involved in fierce clashes with US troops or violence with Sunni Arab groups.
The Pentagon once described the militia as the greatest threat to peace in Iraq, a term now reserved for Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda in Iraq.
An extended ceasefire by the Mehdi Army is seen as key to maintaining security gains in Iraq, where attacks have fallen by 60 percent since the middle of last year.
Brigadier-General Joseph Anderson, chief of staff for the Multi-National Corps-Iraq, said last Friday he was confident Sadr would recommit to the freeze on hostilities.
Although violence has fallen, the US military says it has continued to target “rogue” Mehdi Army units.
Sadr, son of a revered Shi’ite cleric killed under Saddam Hussein, draws support from poor urban Shi’ites and has wide influence in the Shi’ite south and parts of Baghdad.
His followers have been battling for control of southern Iraq and its oil wealth with his main Shi’ite rival, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, headed by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.
Militants
Fifteen suspected militants were killed Monday in US raids targeting a meeting location and possible hide-out for a senior al-Qaeda in Iraq leader northeast of Baghdad, the military said.
The fighting began after gunmen inside two buildings opened fire on American forces who were acting on intelligence about an area believed to be an al-Qaeda meeting location “and possible bed down location for a senior leader of the network,” according to a statement, which added that three militants were killed in the initial engagement.
Ground forces came under more enemy fire as they approached another building in the area northeast of Khalis, 80 kms (50 miles) north of the capital. One of the gunmen inside detonated his suicide vest, killing himself, then another militant moving between the buildings was killed by enemy fighters inside, the military said. The troops then called for air strikes, which killed another four militants, it said.
Fighters in another nearby building, “including a man perceived to be wearing a suicide vest,” attacked US troops trying to clear the area and six more gunmen were killed in subsequent fighting, including a man killed by attack aircraft as he approached the ground forces as they were leaving the area.
Eight suspected militants also were detained and five buildings destroyed, the military said, adding it had no information about whether the targeted al-Qaeda leader was among those killed or captured.
US troops also captured an alleged associate of another senior leader of the al-Qaeda in Iraq network north of Baghdad along with three other suspects in an operation Monday in Tarmiyah, 50 kms (30 miles) north of Baghdad, the military said.
Separately, 14 al-Qaeda linked militants were detained in other raids Sunday and Monday in northern Iraq, including four suspects seized during an operation targeting the leader of a suicide bombing cell in the volatile city of Mosul.
US troops south of Kirkuk also rescued a Kurdish boy who had been kidnapped Friday and held for ransom by an alleged al-Qaeda financier who also was believed to be a kidnapping cell leader in the region, the military said.
Civilians
The US military said Monday that it had accidentally killed nine Iraqi civilians during an operation targeting al-Qaeda in Iraq — the deadliest known case of mistaken identity in recent months.
Meanwhile, Turkish fighter jets bombed suspected Kurdish rebel hideouts Monday in northern Iraq, a senior Kurdish official said. No casualties were reported.
The civilians were killed Saturday near Iskandariyah, 50 kms (30 miles) south of the Iraqi capital, US Navy Lt. Patrick Evans told The Associated Press. Three wounded civilians were taken to US military hospitals nearby, he said.
Evans did not give details about exactly how the people died, but said the killings occurred as US forces pursued suspected al-Qaeda in Iraq militants. The incident is under investigation, he said.
Iraqi police said the victims, including two women, were in two houses in the village of Tal al-Samar, which was bombed by American warplanes late Saturday. They were all Sunni members of the al-Ghrir tribe, an officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media.
The US airstrike occurred after an American convoy came under enemy fire in Tal al-Samar and soldiers called for air support, the Iraqi officer said.
Shortly after the incident, American officers met with a Muslim sheik representing citizens in the area, Evans said.
“We offer our condolences to the families of those who were killed in this incident, and we mourn the loss of innocent civilian life,” he said in a statement e-mailed to the AP.
In November, a leader of one of the so-called awakening councils — groups of Sunni tribesmen allied with American forces who are fighting to oust al-Qaeda from their hometowns — said US soldiers killed dozens of his fighters during a 12-hour battle north of Baghdad.
The leader, Mansour Abid Salim of the Taji Awakening Council, accused American troops of mistaking his men for militants. The US military admitted killing 25 men, but said they were insurgents operating “in the target area” where al-Qaeda was believed to be hiding.
The US military investigated that incident, but the two versions of events were never reconciled.
A month later, the US military said its forces accidentally killed two people during a raid in Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad, and that one of them was later revealed to be an awakening council member.
The Turkish bombing raid lasted one hour early Monday, in an area inside Iraq along the country’s northern border with Turkey, said Jabbar Yawar, an undersecretary for the ministry governing Kurdish protection forces known as peshmerga. The area includes the towns of Khnera, Khwakurd and Sidakan in Irbil province, he said.
Yawar said there were no civilian or peshmerga casualties in the mostly abandoned area.
Turkey has frequently targeted members of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, in cross-border raids into Iraqi territory, where thousands of the rebels are based. The PKK uses its strongholds in northern Iraq for cross-border strikes into Turkey.
Monday’s attack was the fifth such aerial raid since Dec. 16. Turkey’s military says the raids have inflicted heavy losses on the PKK, killing as many as 175 rebels and destroying command and logistic centers, shelters, and ammunition depots.
The PKK has been fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey for more than two decades, in a campaign that has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths.
The rebel group is believed to have a large base in Khnera, where Turkish planes struck Monday. It was unclear whether the base was damaged.
On Sunday, Turkish troops killed 10 separatist Kurdish rebels in clashes in southeastern Turkey, according to a Turkish military official.
The United States — which with Turkey and the European Union considers the PKK a terrorist organization — has cautioned Ankara against a large incursion into Kurdish areas of northern Iraq, fearing it could disrupt one of Iraq’s more stable regions.
Funds
The $515.4 billion (347.5 billion euros) in US Defense Department spending for 2009 that President George W. Bush proposed to Congress on Monday does not include the cost of fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bush asked for $70 billion (47.2 billion euros) as an “emergency allowance” for war costs for the first part of the budget year, which begins Oct 1. The White House said it would request more — probably at least another $100 billion (67.4 billion euros), if current war costs are a guide — “once the specific needs of our troops are better known.”
That is an apparent reference to Bush awaiting recommendations from his top commanders and from Defense Secretary Robert Gates in April on how much to reduce US troop levels in Iraq this year.
The total amount requested — the $515.4 billion (347.5 billion euros) in Defense Department spending, plus $70 billion (47.2 billion euros) in initial war costs — is $585.4 billion (394.7 billion euros). The comparable figure for the current budget year is $668.6 billion, combining $479.5 billion in Defense Department spending and $189.1 billion in projected war costs. Of the $189.1 billion (127.5 billion euros) requested for this year, the Pentagon has actually received $86.7 billion (58.4 billion euros).

Bush also asked for $10.4 billion (7 billion euros) to continue the Pentagon’s effort to develop and deploy defenses against long-range missiles.
The budget proposal earmarks $750 million (505.7 million euros) to help other countries improve their ability to fight terrorists — “recognizing that threats to US security exist beyond the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan,” according to a Pentagon statement obtained by The Associated Press. The statement did not mention specific countries that would receive such aid.
The president’s budget also proposes to spend $389 million (262.3 million euros)to establish a new command focusing on US interests in Africa. The command is headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany and is headed by Army Gen. William Ward.