4 Soldiers of Heaven arrested in Hilla

BABEL / IraqiNews.com: Four members of the Jund al-Samaa, or Soldiers of Heaven, group were arrested in downtown Hilla city, a security commander said on Tuesday. “During a search raid in central Hilla city, four wanted men were arrested in accordance with Article IV of the Terrorism Law,” Maj. Majid al-Imara told IraqiNews.com news agency. “Those arrested are Soldiers of Heaven members,” Imara noted. Soldiers of Heaven is a Shiite armed group whose leader is allegedly the Awaited Mahdi, the 12th Messiah-like holiest figure in the Shiite Muslim doctrine. In late January 2007 Iraqi and U.S. forces launched a wide-scale security operation against the group members in their stronghold in al-Zarga area, 13 km northeast of Najaf, 110 km southwest of Baghdad, killing more than 300 militants, including the group leader, and capturing hundreds others. Military operations continued in early February 2007 as Iraqi authorities were tipped about the group’s plans to wage armed operations to control the holy Shiite city of Najaf and assassinate scholars there. The group’s plans, which coincided with the celebrations of Ashura, a major religious occasion for Shiite Muslims in Iraq, envisaged having Najaf as a springboard to control other Iraqi cities. Iraqi authorities had said that the leader of the Soldiers of Heaven claimed that he was the Awaited Mahdi, believed by the Shiites to be the duodecimal imam. This self-claimed Mahdi was planning to control Najaf and kill all religious clerics during religious celebrations of Ashura, or 10th of Muharram in the hegira calendar, commemorating the slaughter of Imam al-Hussein Ibn Ali, Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, in the battle of Taf in Karbala in the hegira year 61 (680 in the Gregorian calendar). SS (S) 2