Sadr City blasts caused by joint force’s detonation of IEDs

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: The Sadr City explosions that occurred during a late hour of Saturday night were caused by “controlled” detonation of five improvised explosive devices by a joint force from the Iraqi army and the Multi-National Force (MNF) troops, according to the Baghdad Operations Command on Sunday. “The five IEDs were detonated under the control of the joint security station in Sadr City,” Maj. General Qassem Atta, the spokesman for the BOC, told IraqiNews.com news agency. Earlier on Sunday, eyewitnesses in eastern Baghdad district of Sadr City said six successive explosions rocked the area during a late hour of Saturday night but there is no word on casualties or losses. “The explosions were successive and powerful,” a local resident in Sadr City told IraqiNews.com news agency. Sadr City is the key stronghold of the Sadrists, or Iraqis loyal to Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr. The district has witnessed in late March 2008 bloody confrontations between security forces backed by Multi-National Force (MNF) troops on one hand and fighters from Sadr’s Mahdi Army militias. The clashes later ended with an agreement between the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) bloc, to which incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki belongs, and representatives from the Sadrist Movement. AmR (S)/SR 1