BAGHDAD — Gunmen assassinated a top aide of anti-American leader Muqtada al-Sadr on Friday, sharpening a Shiite power struggle that has already triggered fighting between the cleric’s followers and the U.S.-backed Iraqi government.
Riyadh al-Nouri, director of al-Sadr’s office in Najaf, was gunned down by an unknown number of assailants near his home after returning from prayer services, police and Sadrist officials said.
Al-Sadr blamed the Americans and their Iraqi allies for the killing but called for calm — presumably to avoid a showdown at a time when his Mahdi Army militia is under pressure by Iraqi and U.S.-led forces in Baghdad and southern Iraq.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, also a Shiite, condemned “this savage crime” and ordered an investigation “to pursue and arrest the killers.” But many of the 5,000 people who attended al-Nouri’s funeral later Friday in Najaf chanted “al-Maliki is the enemy of God” as they shouted slogans against al-Sadr’s Shiite political rivals.
Authorities declared a curfew in Najaf, the world’s premier Shiite theological center, 100 miles south of Baghdad. Security forces took to the streets in several major cities across the Shiite south. A curfew was also imposed in Hillah, where government troops clashed with al-Sadr’s militia last month.
The assassination of such an influential Sadrist figure is likely to increase tension between al-Sadr’s movement and the Shiite-led government.
Several prominent Sadrists described al-Nouri, 41, as a voice of moderation within the movement, arguing against an armed confrontation with the Americans and al-Sadr’s Shiite rivals.
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