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Show World&Hztion Page 16 Monday, April 21, 2008 Al-Sadr's followers refuse to disband militia in Iraq BAGHDAD (AP) - Followers ofhardline cleric Muqtada al-Sadr raised the stakes Sunday in the showdown with Iraq's government, refusing to disband their militia. The U.S. military said 40 Shiite militants were killed in fierce fighting in southern Iraq. Prime Minister Nouri alMaliki, meanwhile, assured visiting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that he will not back down in his confrontation with Shiite militias, even as mortar shells fired from Shiite areas struck the U.S.-protected Green Zone. In a sign of that resolve, Iraqi soldiers took control Sunday of the last stronghold of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia in the southern city of Basra, where an Iraqi offensive last month triggered the current wave of Shiite fighting. Al-Maliki, a Shiite, has demanded that al-Sadr disband his Mahdi Army, the country's biggest Shiite militia, or his followers will not be allowed to run in provincial elections this fall. Al-Sadr's followers, who control 30 of the 275 parliament seats, rejected that demand Sunday and instead called for an end to U.S.-Iraqi military operations in Sadr City, the Baghdad stronghold of the Mahdi Army, and Shula, another Shiite district of the capital. "All must know that disbanding the Mahdi Army means the end of alMaliki's government," Sadrist lawmaker Fawzi Akram told reporters. He called the government campaign against the Mahdi Army a "filthy military and media campaign" planned and supported by the Americans. He urged the United Nations, nongovernmental organizations and human rights groups to intervene. "Random airstrikes, killings and bloodletting will not help but rather will increase hatred and enmity," he said, adding that if operations continue "all options are open for us." That could include the formal scrapping of a unilateral truce al-Sadr called last August - a move that American officials credit with helping dramatically reduce violence over the last year. artner. Perfect r art You found one partner. Now find one the finest in Wedding psauare r i n T t nG invitations & related 630 West 200 North papergoods. 753-8875 tie only pfjBfjpf oii'lf n all summer... Your health insurance plan. Broadbent Financial Services 40 W I25O N Ste 3A :V.. (435)752-7200 ' : • Monday-Friday 8 am- 5 pra "Call U M Volca of Cholca" to tmvm up to 60% or Since the Basra crackdown began March 25, that truce is in tatters, with fighting in the Baghdad area and scattered clashes still under way throughout the Shiite south. The U.S. military announced Sunday that U.S.backed Iraqi soldiers killed 40 militiamen and arrested 40 more in fighting this weekend near Nasiriyah, a Shiite city 200 miles southeast of Baghdad. A U.S. statement said the fighting broke out Saturday when "criminal militia members" attacked Iraqi security forces. Iraqi troops with U.S. special operations advisers counterattacked the militiamen in a local Sadrist office, where they found various weapons including Iranian-made penetrator bombs, the statement said. Al-Sadr accused U.S. and Iraqi forces of "murdering" the "faithful brothers" by "brutal means" in the Nasiriyah fighting and demanded an investigation. The anti-American cleric has accused the government of exploiting his August truce to crack down on his political movement and warned Saturday that he would declare "open war" if the campaign against him did not stop. Al-Sadr's statement was broadcast in Sadr City on mosque loudspeakers, raising fears of more bloodshed among the district's 2.5 million people. In the latest fighting, U.S. soldiers killed 12 militants Sunday in a series of engagements in Shiite areas of Baghdad, the military said. Nine of them died after gunmen attacked a U.S. checkpoint in Sadr City with machine guns, rocketpropelled grenades and mortar shells, military spokesman Lt. Col. Steve Stover said. There was no report of U.S. casualties. The deaths were in addition to seven armed "criminals" reported killed by the military on Saturday in Sadr City - two in gunbattles and five in two separate airstrikes. Iraqi police and hospital officials also said six civilians - four men and two boys ages 8 and 10 - died in fighting in Sadr City after midnight. "There was an uptick in violence in comparison with the past couple of weeks," Stover said. "We're not looking for a fight but what we are doing is protecting the Iraqi people." A full-scale uprising by alSadr, who led two rebellions against U.S.-led forces in 2004, could lead to a dramatic increase in violence in Iraq, threatening the security gains since President Bush ordered nearly 30,000 U.S. reinforcements to Iraq early last year. A FATHER OF T W O CHILDREN currently in state custody and a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, walks down a gravel road ns he gives journalists a tour of the Yearning For Zion ranch, near Eldorado, Texas. The intensely private polygamous sect members fired up the public relations machine after the state seized more than 400 of their children. AP Photo Silent, secretive sect unleashes public relations campaign SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) - Before authorities raided their west Texas retreat, members of a secretive polygamous church spent decades holding as tightly to their intense privacy as the Scriptures guiding their way of life. Contact with outsiders was limited. Media inquiries were rejected with either stone-faced silence or a polite "no comment." But after Texas officials removed 416 children belonging to members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the sect fired up the public relations machine. From newspaper stories to appearances on morning network television, "Larry King Live" and "Oprah," FLDS women are speaking publicly about the heartbreak of being separated from their children and sharing some details of their life. "This was just such a heinous thing that the normal rules didn't apply," said Rod Parker, a Salt Lake City attorney serving as a spokesman for the church. "What we were trying to do was inject a- human element into what was happening here. Put names to faces and not just think of these people as being so different." State officials raided the ranch April 3 after a domestic violence hotline call from a 16-year-old girl who alleged she was trapped inside the private retreat and had been physically and sexually abused by her much older husband. The public relations campaign began a more than a week later, when many FLDS women who had been allowed to remain with their children in state shelters were bused back to their 1,700acre ranch. Within an hour, church leaders threw open a pair of normally locked gates, launching a two-day media blitz. Cameras and reporters have had tours of the grounds and peeks inside the sect's homes and a church school. And while the message seems clearly targeted, the decision was less calculated than it may seem, Parker said. "It was a spur-of-themoment decision to do this. It was literally made as we were standing at the gate," said Parker, who has handled civil and criminal court matters for the FLDS since 1990. Going public in the midst of a big crisis is always a risk, said Dick Amme, a public relations and crisis communications specialist from Winston-Salem, N.C. Amme said he advises clients to asses the situation, gather the facts andfixthe central problem. Polygamist sect widespread in West The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has an estimated 10,000 followers. Its leader, Warren Jeffs, is jailed in Kingman, Ariz., for being an accomplice to rape. Selection of Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints communities / UTAH COLO, /Hildale f V olorado~7 City i Mancos More than 220 women and children were removed from a compound built by Jeffs. TEXAS Eldorado \ SOURCES: FBI; ESRI AP National Guard COLLEGE FIRST Enlistment Option Up co two years of non-deployment following completion of Initial Active Duty Training Up to a $20,000 Enlistment Bonus | • $20,000 Student Loan Repayment (must have pre-existing loans) | • Basic Educational assistance of $317 per month Montgomery G.I. Bill Selective Reserve (MGIB-SR) GEIC0.A15-miniitecall could save you 15% on car insurance. | • Additional Educational assistance of $350 per month - MGIB Kicker (in addition to the MGIB-SR, and is available to those enlisting In a critical MOS and assigned to a qualified unit) 1 100% College Tuition Assistance, up to $4,500 per year 1 State Tuition Assistance (variesfayState) t-Vi\l"; College First is for You! 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