BASAR, Iraq, April 18 (Reuters) - Iraqi troops cordoned off the Basra office of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's followers on Friday and prevented them holding prayers in a move that seems sure to inflame tensions. The government and Sadr followers confirmed the operation, which comes nearly a month after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki launched a crackdown on Sadr's Mehdi Army militia in Basra, sparking violent clashes across the south and in Baghdad. "We have orders from the prime minister to take back all the governmental buildings that are occupied by parties and political movements in Basra within 48 hours," Interior Ministry spokesman Major-General Abdul-Karim Khalaf, told Reuters. Sadr's office in Basra is located in an old Olympic committee building from the Saddam Hussein-era. There were no reports of fighting between Sadr followers and Iraqi troops. "Troops from the Iraqi Army prevented us from holding Friday prayers and now they are cordoning off the office. They want to evacuate and storm the office," Harith al-Idhari, the head of the office, told Reuters Sheikh Asad al-Nasiri, an aide to Sadr in the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, condemned the "inhumane actions" of the Iraqi government and vowed that Friday prayers would go ahead as planned. Although there have been sporadic clashes in Basra since Sadr called his militia there off the streets late last month, the focus of fighting has been in Sadr City, the tightly-packed east Baghdad slum of two million people. There are also signs that militants are launching a new campaign of violence in the north, where Sunni Islamist al Qaeda has regrouped after being pushed out of Baghdad and western Anbar province. On Thursday, a suicide bomber struck a funeral in northern Iraq, killing 50 mourners and wounding 55 in one of the deadliest attacks in Iraq for months. (Reporting by Aref Mohammed in Basra and Khalid al-Ansary and Aws Qusay in Baghdad; Writing by Noah Barkin in Baghdad, editing by Ralph Boulton)
A general view shows a Palestinian refugee camp near the Iraqi-Syrian borders in Iraq, about 650 km (404 miles) west of Baghdad, April 14, 2008. The camp includes 1,930 Palestinian refugees, ...
