Iraqi cleric threatens us troops

  the Mehdi Army is still a force to be reckoned with which says its Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr leader and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr has threatened to take up arms against US troops unless they leave the country at the end of the year.

In a rare interview, he told the BBC he believed that American forces could not be established in an agreement to withdraw from Iraq.

The United States still have approximately 46,000 soldiers in Iraq, due to him having withdrawn in January 2012.

On Thursday, tens of thousands of followers of the imam rallied in Baghdad, the call for Americans to leave.

The Pentagon has been pressing the Iraqi Government to decide soon whether it will ask some to stay beyond the deadline.

In Sadr City, Baghdad's Moqtada al-Sadr stronghold, supporters marched in military formation, their boots trampling on the flags of the United States, United Kingdom and Israel.

It was members of the Mehdi Army, a Shiite militia which fought a bitter sectarian war American invasion.

They sported a new uniform - gone was the trademark of black shirts of the past. Instead, they wore the colours of the Iraqi flag - red, white and black - with Allah Akbar (God is great) affixed through the medium.

It was an attempt to transform a source of contention spent sectarian in a broad nationalist appeal.

Message appears to tell us - we're in this together, the Iraqi Shiites or Sunnis, against the Americans.

Growing confidence

There was no weapon in evidence but, speaking of the BBC, Moqtada al-Sadr said that the Mehdi army was still a fighting force with which it takes.

Demonstrations were held in the suburb of primarily Shia Sadr City

"I know that the Iraqi Government is under considerable pressure from the US occupier, to enable them to stay in Iraq" he said in the Holy City of Najaf.

"If the Americans withdraw, we will be reactivating of the Mehdi Army." At this time, their activities are frozen, but if the Americans remain, will change.

"We are still the resistance and we can even hit their bases, troops and equipment until they are at Iraq.

Until January, Moqtada al-Sadr has spent most of the past two years in exile in Iran, squeezed out by a combined us and Iraqi military effort.

But the elections last year marked a turning point in his fortune. His party did better than expected in the survey, and now it is back in Iraq, with seats in Parliament and a growing sense of confidence.

The Americans still have thousands of troops in Iraq, and nervous of the growing influence of the Iran, they make it clear that they would like to keep some of them in the country beyond the end of this year.

But, in order to do this, they must be invited to stay by the Iraqi Government. And Moqtada al-Sadr seems determined to stand as the man who pushed the.

U.S. threatens new action that stops the Syria killings

AMMAN - The United States, reacting to the killing of 27 demonstrators by the Syrian security forces Friday, threatened to take new measures against the Government of Syria unless it stopped killing and his people of harassment.

Rights activists said dead among the thousands of protesters who demonstrated after Friday prayers in cities across the country of Banias on the Mediterranean coast to Qamishly Kurdish East, demanding an end to the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.

The European Union has agreed to impose sanctions in response to the violent repression of Assad on the demonstrators, which the activists say has killed more than 580 people.

"The United States believed deplorable actions of than the Syria to its mandate of people a strong international response," Press Secretary White House Jay Carney said in a statement.

"Lack of significant change in the current approach of the Syrian Government, including an end for the demonstrators killing Government... to the United States and its international partners will take additional steps to clarify our strong opposition to the treatment of the Syrian Government of its people."

Imposed United States of its own sanctions last week against certain figures in the Syrian Government.

More bloody confrontation Friday was in the city of Homs where 15 demonstrators were killed, said Ammar Qurabi activist.

Television State said an army officer and four policemen were killed in Homs by a "criminal gang", although another activist, Wissam tariff, said witnesses him nine soldiers fact defection in Homs to the demonstrators and may have faced other troops.

Four demonstrators were killed at Deir el - Zor, said a local tribal chief of the region that produces the largest part of 380,000 barrels per day of oil Syria. They were the first reported death there in seven weeks of unrest throughout the country.

International criticism mounted against Al-Assad, which is passed to the offensive to maintain the grip of four decades of his family on the power in the country of 20 million and to crush the demonstrators demanding freedom.

European Union governments agreed Friday to impose assets of gels and travel on to 14 Syrian officials responsible for the violent repression.

Officials accuse the "army of terrorist groups" of the violence, give a lower number of deaths and say that half the deaths were soldiers and police officers. They say demonstrators are few in number and do not represent the majority of the Syrians.

Assad himself was not covered by the sanctions, following the agreement of the EU in principle last week to impose an arms embargo on the Syria. The measures will be approved Monday if no State member object.

Assad the assault troops Adraa City last week, and security forces prevented protesters establishing a platform as Tahrir square to the Egypt by blocking access to the capital Damascus. But each week protesters have used Friday prayers to launch fresh steps.

"People want the overthrow of the regime," 2,000 demonstrators shouted in the suburbs of Damascus's Saqba.

Sequences released on the Internet and has been distributed on television Al Jazeera showed protesters in several cities with the same calls for freedom and the change of direction.

"7,000 ARRESTED"

Hama, where Assad father has brutally repressed an armed Islamist uprising in 1982, a rights activist said security forces shot dead six demonstrators.

The Syrian Observatory based in London for human rights, said one protester was killed in Latakia and three wounded.

Despite severe repression, the demonstrators appear determined to maintain the requirements for an end to years of repression, arrests without trial and the corruption of the ruling elite.

Will "the Syrian people not back down after the country's budding youth killed hundreds," said Montaha El Atrache from the Syrian Sawasiah human rights organization.

Opposition leader Riad Seif, who helped launch a peaceful movement who seek democracy and political freedoms 10 years ago, was arrested in one of the demonstrations Friday, said his daughter.

Thursday the authorities have arrested prominent Damascus preacher Mouaz al-Khatib, a major figure of the revolt, rights activists, said Friday.

A Western diplomat said 7,000 people had been arrested since the protests broke out on 18 March at Deraa.

DERAA "SEAT".

Last week, Al-Assad ordered the army to Adraa, cradle of the insurgency that started with demands for greater freedom and put an end to corruption and is now pressing for his removal.

A division of ultra-loyalist conducted by his brother Maher were bombed and machinegunned Adraa of old quarter Saturday, said residents. The United States condemned the attack as "barbaric."

The Syrian authorities said Thursday the army had started to leave Deraa, but residents described a city still under siege.

Human Rights Watch quoted figures saying Syrian rights groups 350 people were killed there.

Pakistan threatens U.S. cooperation if several raids

ABBOTTABAD / NEW YORK - the Pakistani army threatened Thursday to reconsider its anti-terrorism cooperation with the United States if Washington carried out another unilateral attack as the killing of Osama bin Laden.

In New York, United States President Barack Obama met with fire and visited Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan to provide the comfort of a city still scarred by the September 11, 2001, attacks orchestrated by bin Laden who killed nearly 3,000 people.

He said the murder of Ben Laden, by a team of the United States commando in Pakistan, Monday "has sent a message around the world, but also sent a message here, to the House that when we say that we will never forget"", we mean what we say.

But a high-security Pakistan official said American soldiers killed Ben Laden "cold blood", forcing a relationship Washington considers vital to defeat the al-Qaeda movement which led bin Laden and win its war in the neighbouring countries of Afghanistan.

Major parties Islamic Pakistan, Jamaat-e-Islami, called for mass Friday demonstrations against what he called a violation of sovereignty by the U.S. raid. He also urged the Government at the end of support for U.S. battles against militants.

Seeking to repair ties, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Rome Thursday that Washington was always anxious to maintain its alliance with Islamabad.

The army Agency and Pakistani Spy have provided information to the United States, arrested al-Qaeda figures and taken on activists in the regions bordering the Afghanistan.

"This is not always an easy relationship," said Clinton. "But, on the other hand, it is productive for both our countries and we will continue to cooperate between our Governments, our military, our law enforcement agencies."

But the Pakistan army, with the few critics at home in the operation of U.S. in Abbottabad, a city just an hour's drive of the capital, said in his first comment since the attack that the Chief of staff General Ashfaq Kayani had sent a severe warning.

Kayani ""made clear that any similar action in violation of the sovereignty of Pakistan justify a review on the level of cooperation of the United States and military intelligence services,"said of the army."

The army also said that he could conduct an investigation on the failures by the intelligence to detect most of the world is in its own backyard.

Americans are questioning how the leader of al-Qaeda could live Pakistani years in a garrison town. Two legislators, Granger of Kay Republican and Democrat Howard Berman, wrote to Clinton Thursday complaining about U.S. aid to Pakistan.

FIRE CONTROVERSY

In another sign of relationships between allies, responsible for said senior Pakistani security Reuters that U.S. accounts had been deceptive in describing a long gunbattle in the compound where bin Laden and four others were killed by a squad of elite of the US Navy SEALs.

In Washington, those familiar with the U.S. Government more recent reports on the raid said Reuters Thursday that one of the four main targets shot dead by commandos of the U.S. has participated in a hostile fire.

As seals moved on a bed and breakfast within the compound of Osama bin Laden, they were met with fire and drawn on a man at the Guest House. It has proved to be Abu Ahmed Al-Kuwaiti, a courier for al-Qaeda U.S. intelligence agencies had long been followed.

The commandos then entered the main residence, where they killed another service messaging and a son of bin Laden, said the sources. Finally, they shot and killed the Chief of al-Qaeda in a top-floor room after earlier firing at him that he has turned the head of a door or on a balcony.

The American authorities initially spoke of an exchange of fire in 40 minutes. The White House has also criticized the "fog of war" for the accounts of evolution.

Receipt of U.S. that bin Laden was not armed when shot in the head - as well as the burial of his body, a rare practice in Islam sea - attracted criticism in the Arab world and Europewhere some warned of the reaction against the West.

UNITED STATES-PAKISTAN FRICTION

Obama went to New York to say that he had made good on a promise to 10 years by his predecessor, George w. Bush, who said to slow wreck of the World Trade Center three days after the attacks of September 11, "the people who overthrew these buildings will hear us all soon.".

Obama went to a Firehouse lost 15 members in the attacks, before heading to Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan, to lay a wreath and meet the families of the victims.

He shook hands with firefighters and told, "this is a symbolic site of extraordinary sacrifice made this day terrible there almost 10 years.".

"We waited for this for 10 years." "It puts a little more American pride among the people," said Al Fiammetta, 57, a security engineer who said he had authorized the debris at Ground Zero.

New York City resident Caroline Epner, 32, said: "it's OK for him (Obama) to take a tour of the victory."

Friction between Washington and Pakistan put the emphasis on the role of the high security service of Pakistan or ISI Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate.

Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir denied Pakistani forces or the ISI assisted al-Qaeda. "Criticism of the ISI is not only unjustified, it cannot be validated,"he says."

For Pakistan Washington lobbyists have launched an intense campaign on Capitol Hill, to counter charges that Islamabad has deliberately given refuge to bin Laden.

In Rome for talks on aiding the rebels of the Libya, Clinton recalled the international audience that bin Laden is a clear goal for the United States since 2001 and that his death did not end the battle against al-Qaida.

U.S. Marine Corps Major General Richard Mills, said the raid that killed the bin Ladens might provide an intelligence bonanza in the information entered on the Afghanistan. "I think that it will identify people who provide... equipment support to the insurgency", he said."".

In an interview with the CBS television program "60 Minutes", Obama reported that the death of Osama bin Laden has confirmed its commitment to begin to draw down troops in Afghanistan in July. "We shall have a perpetual print size that we have," he said in an excerpt from the publication.

US authorities have said that evidence has been found to hide the bin Ladens indicating that al-Qaeda had, at a time, considered attack that the system of American rail on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks later this year.

But the spokesman of the Ministry of security inland Matthew Chandler said that no there was "no information of any imminent terrorist threat to the rail industry." to the United States