Efforts to calm Shiite rivalry

The Iraqi Presidency and the government on Thursday succeeded to bring back calm to several Iraqi cities which witnessed in the past days confrontations between al-Sader group and the Bader organization which belongs for the Higher Council OF Islamic Revolution that resulted in the death of 8 Iraqis and injuring other 10.

This success was attained after the Iraqi President Jalal al-Talibani ordered the formation of an investigation committee to end the crisis and punish sides responsible for it, deploring the attack against the office of al-Shaheed al-Sader in Najaf, expressing his conviction that the recent acts of violence aims at bringing in chaos and disorder so as to perpetuate schemes on implanting sedition in the components of the Iraqi society.

On the other hand, al-Sader called on his followers to abide by calm and not to be dragged behind "schemes of the West which aim at casuing sedition." He retracted an earlier threat he had made to return back to arms, demanding simultaneously the leader of the Higher Council Of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, to make a similar statement deploring what his followers had done.

Al-Sader stressed that so far he has not taken a decision to take part in the next elections, and he denied that he asked parliamentarians of his group and the minister of transport to suspend their membership. But he thanked them for this step and stressed that their return back to practice their work is linked to the ability of the government to lift repression against his group in the past days.