‘We are angry. This is a kind of revenge’, the spokesman for anti-occupation Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said yesterday after US troops and Iraqi special forces arrested the al-Sadr organisation’s Baghdad media director.
Abdel Mehdi al-Matiri added: ‘Sheikh Abdel Hadi al-Duraji was arrested at midnight (2100 GMT Thursday) along with two cousins.
‘We are angry. This is a kind of revenge. Sheikh Duraji deals with the media. He is not a military man.’
Al-Matiri said a guard was shot dead during the arrest.
He said the US forces were trying to provoke the Sadr trend into a violent response but added: ‘We will not retaliate.’
The US military said Iraqi special forces backed by US troops seized a high-level militia leader in a pre-dawn raid in eastern Baladiat district, close to the al-Sadr militia Mahdi Army’s stronghold of Sadr City.
Though a US military statement did not identify al-Duraji, details of the operation given by the US military coincided with those given by al-Sadr’s office.
The statement said: ‘In an Iraqi-led operation, special Iraqi army forces captured a high-level, illegal armed group leader during operations with coalition advisers.’
The US military claimed he was suspected of leading ‘punishment’ activities, said to include ‘kidnapping, torture and murder’ of numerous Iraqi security forces members, government officials and civilians.
The raid comes as US and Iraqi forces prepare for a full-scale crackdown against insurgents in the capital.
Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri Maliki is under increasing US pressure to dismantle the Mahdi Army.
Thursday night’s arrest came a day after Maliki said 400 members of the Mahdi Army had been detained across southern Iraq.
• Second news story
NO MORE THAN 5p IN THE POUND FOR FAREPACK CLAIMANTS
‘It is clear that Farepak did not protect the money paid in by agents and customers,’ says the report put out yesterday by the administrators dealing with the collapsed Christmas savings club Farepak.
Administrators BDO Stoy Hayward’s report to creditors blames Farepak’s collapse on its failure to ‘adequately’ ringfence cash paid in by customers.
It explains that Farepak’s collapse was triggered by the fact that £33m it lent to its parent company European Home Retail (EHR) was not paid back.
The report says that a total of 113,000 customers and agents have made claims so far, totalling £38m.
But BDO Stoy Hayward has warned victims they would get no more than 5p in every pound they lost when the firm failed. More than 150,000 people lost an average of £400.
The administrators now hope to move the firm into voluntary liquidation, which would allow its assets to be sold and turned into cash to pay off creditors.
BDO Stoy Hayward said the move would also allow liquidators to investigate the collapse and sue ‘any parties responsible or liable’ for its failure, and redistribute any money made from legal action to creditors.
A special fund set up in the run up to Christmas last year by Labour minister Ian McCartney raised just £7m.
Last month, members of the savings club were hit by a further setback after a High Court judge deferred some payments owed to members.
If successful, savers would have received sums ranging from £17 to £1,500.
A judgement in the case is due later this year.