Iraqi army enters Sadr's bastion

Iraq sent its army deep into Baghdad's Sadr City, power base of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, yesterday to stamp government authority on areas previously outside its control.

Soldiers moved into the sprawling slum in the early hours, securing most of the suburb in an operation that an army spokesman said had been coordinated with Cleric Sadr's movement to avoid bloodshed.

The operation, on the second anniversary of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki being sworn in, marked the first time since the US-led invasion of March 2003 that the Iraqi army had pushed so deeply into the area.

"The security forces have taken control of security for the city completely, God willing," Major-General Qassim Moussawi, a spokesman for the security forces in Baghdad, told a news briefing on Operation Peace.

The operation marks the latest step by the government to extend control over areas of Iraq that were under the sway of Shi'ite militias or Sunni Arab insurgents.

Iraqi soldiers, who previously controlled only the outer perimeter of Sadr City, met no opposition during their advance into the suburb, home to two million people.

But Major-General Moussawi said soldiers had cleared more than 100 home-made roadside bombs before going in. US military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Stover said no American troops were involved in the operation which he said was Iraqi-planned and executed.

Sadr City is the main stronghold of Cleric Sadr's Mehdi Army, a militia estimated to number tens of thousands that the US military once called the greatest threat to peace in Iraq.

The Mehdi Army staged two uprisings against US forces in 2004. It has been battling Iraqi and US forces in Sadr City since late March, when a government offensive against its operations in the oil port of Basra touched off a wave of retaliatory attacks in Baghdad and other cities.