U.S. troops close down outlets of Sadr City-MP

BAGHDAD/IraqiNews.com: A lawmaker from a bloc loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Wednesday said the U.S army forces closed down the outlets of Shiite Slum Sadr City to prevent demonstrations to be staged by Sadrists this weekend. “U.S troops closed down the outlets of Sadr City, preventing entrance and departure to the sprawling slum,” MP Ahmed al-Massoudi from Sadrist bloc loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr told IraqiNews.com. “The measures are attempts to thwart 1 million-strong demonstration to be held by Sadrists on Saturday,” he stressed. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for staging demonstrations to protest the U.S-Iraq security agreement to be signed between the two countries to regulate the presence of foreign troops in Iraq when the UN made expected by the end of December this year. The U.S. and Iraq have been negotiating their own bilateral accord for months but have so far failed to seal the deal because of disagreements on whether American soldiers should be immune from Iraqi law when off-duty. The lawmaker called for the government “to intervene and to lift the closure”. The Sadrist bloc, holding 30 out of the parliament’s total 275 seats, held several rallies to protest the security deal with the U.S. and also to denounce the visits of U.S. officials to Iraq. AM(S) 1