By Aseel Kami
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadrordered his feared Mehdi Army on Thursday to maintain itssix-month ceasefire as members of the militia clashed with U.S.and Iraqi soldiers in Baghdad.
Shi'ite Sadr's spokesman Salah al-Ubaidi said theceasefire, which expires later this month and has been vital tocutting violence in Iraq, should continue to be observed untilmilitia members are told it is over or has been renewed.
Some members of Sadr's bloc are pressuring him not toextend the August 29 freeze on the Mehdi Army's activities.
"Any member of the Mehdi Army who conducts violent actsduring the ceasefire, the Sadr office declares they will nolonger be part of the Mehdi Army," Sadr said in a statementread to Reuters by Ubaidi.
He said Sadr had issued the statement in response torumours the ceasefire was about to come to an end. He declinedto say whether the ceasefire would be extended when its termlapses.
Attacks across Iraq have fallen by 60 percent since June2007 after a series of security crackdowns. A return tohostilities could seriously jeopardise those gains.
Washington has been urging Iraq to take advantage ofimproved security and move ahead with a series of laws aimed atreconciling majority Shi'ite and minority Sunni Arabs.
DEADLOCKED
But several of those laws, including the 2008 budget andanother that would release thousands of mainly Sunni Arabs fromIraqi jails, remained deadlocked.
"The delay in the budget is harming everyone," Iraq'sShi'ite Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi told a news conference.
Votes which had been expected on Thursday did not takeplace. Lawmakers have refused to ratify the $48 billion (24million pound) budget because of disputes over allocations,mainly the 17 percent for the largely autonomous and stableKurdistan region.
Taha al-Luhaiba of the Sunni Arab Accordance Front said avote could take place on Sunday or Monday, but Muna Zalzah, afinance committee member from the Shi'ite Alliance, feared thebudget might not be voted on for at least another week.
Some fear that failure to pass the budget would hold upvital spending at a time when Washington is urging thegovernment to take advantage of improved security and jumpstartthe oil-dependent economy.
"Even if the parliament voted today, the budget will not beimplemented until March. We have lost a lot of time,"Abdul-Mahdi said.
The law that would free prisoners who have not been chargedwith or convicted of major crimes like murder or treason isalso seen as a step towards reconciliation because most of the23,000 people held in Iraqi jails are Sunni Arabs.
Freeing prisoners has been one of the preconditions for theAccordance Front, the main Sunni Arab bloc, to return tocabinet after it quit last month, fracturing Prime MinisterNuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led unity government.
But Luhaibi said new disagreements had delayed that law,with his bloc wanting it expanded to include provisions for newtrials for prisoners who may have made forced confessions.
Amid signs of growing restlessness, police said Mehdi Armyfighters had clashed with Iraqi and U.S. soldiers early onThursday in Sadr City, the sprawling Shi'ite slum in northeastBaghdad which is one of Sadr's power bases.
They said three people, including a woman and a child, werehurt in the clashes and 16 detained. A U.S. military spokesmansaid one person was killed and another injured in the raids.
Sadr, who led two uprisings against U.S. forces in 2004,ordered the Mehdi Army ceasefire so he could reorganise thesplintered militia. Ubaidi has said Sadr is gauging the mood ofsenior figures before deciding whether to extend the truce.
There have been growing signs of unease within Sadr's camp,with members claiming they are targeted by security forces.
U.S. commanders have said they are confident Sadr wouldextend the freeze, although U.S. and Iraqi forces continue totarget "rogue" Mehdi Army units.
(Additional reporting by Waleed Ibrahim in Baghdad; Writingby
Paul Tait; Editing by Dominic Evans)
