NAJAF - Radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Sunday warned the Baghdad government of retaliation if it delays a probe into a gun battle in Karbala last week in which 52 people died.
Shortly afterwards, the government announced an inquiry into last Tuesday's clashes, while Karbala police revealed they had arrested 269 people for their alleged involvement in the fighting which turned a major Shiite pilgrimage into a bloodbath in the shrine city south of Baghdad.
Sadr's warning came just days after he ordered a freeze on the activities of his Mahdi Army militia after it was widely accused of fomenting the bloodletting.
"After the procrastination we have seen over the past two days, we warn the Iraqi government and authorities in Karbala if they don't conduct a fair, neutral and fast investigation, the Sadr office will be left with no choice but to take unspecified measures," Sadr's spokesman in the city of Najaf, Sheikh Saleh al-Obeidi, told reporters in Karbala.
The battle near the shrine of Imam Abbas shook Iraq's Shiite community and forced Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who initially blamed Sunni insurgents, to order the investigation.
He ordered that a committee be set up to investigate the "tragic incident in Karbala," a statement from his office said.
"The committee should carry out its mission professionally and without any bias towards any sect," the statement quoted the premier as saying. "The investigation should end as fast as possible."
US military spokesman Rear Admiral Mark Fox said American military officials would help the government to probe the events, although he added that "it is an Iraqi investigation."
Karbala police chief Brigadier General Raed Shaker said 269 people had been detained in the past two days and the round-up of those involved in the fighting was continuing.
"We are still conducting search operations in the city and its outskirts," he said.
Sadr's spokesman said those arrested were members of the Sadr movement.
"The security forces have arrested a large number of Sadrists... more than 200 in the past three days and also killed around 150 randomly during raids," Obeidi said.
"We have this information from official records in hospitals. There is injustice against the Sadrists at a time when we want to promote unity."
The figure of 150 dead was not confirmed by any independent source.
Meanwhile, Iraqi medical and security officials said a car bomb killed four people in the northwestern Shiite Kadhimiyah neighbourhood of Baghdad.
Eight others were wounded in the blast at the main Adnan intersection of the area, they said.
Ten members of an Iraqi doomsday cult were sentenced to death on Sunday and 394 jailed for their roles in a January rebellion against Iraqi and US troops that left hundreds dead, police said.
"The criminal court passed judgment on 458 accused," Najaf police chief Brigadier General Abdel Karim Mustapha told AFP.
"It sentenced 10 leaders of the Soldiers of Heaven to death and decided to release 54 of them," he said. "The rest were sentenced to jail terms ranging from 15 years to life."
In January the militant sect, dubbing itself the Jund al-Samaa or "Soldiers of Heaven," clashed with US and Iraqi forces outside the holy city of Najaf three days ahead of the Shiite Ashura festival.
The fighting left 263 sect followers dead, including their messianic leader Dhia Abdul Zahra Kadhim al-Krimawi, also known as Abu Kamar, who believed he was descended from the Prophet Mohammed.
Abu Kamar had also claimed to be a descendant of the Imam Mahdi, an eighth-century imam who vanished as a boy and whom Shiites believe will return to bring justice to the world.
Najaf deputy governor Abdel Hussein Attan said at the time of the clashes the well-organised sect planned to attack senior Shiite clerics and seize control of religious sites in Najaf, in a sign the Mahdi was about to reappear.
The US military on Sunday said its troops killed eight suspected militants, arrested four and freed nine Iraqis awaiting trial at a kangaroo court run by Al-Qaeda just north of Baghdad.
The nine were freed when American forces raided a building in the town of Tarmiyah that was allegedly being used by Al-Qaeda to hold "illegal terrorist court proceedings," the US military statement said.

09/02/2007 14:08 GMT