Shiite militia leader captured

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi soldiers backed by American troops and military aircraft stormed a building in a Shiite slum here early Friday, killing or wounding between 30 and 40 gunmen and capturing a high-level Shiite militia commander accused of attacking Iraqi and American troops, the American military command said.

American and Iraqi authorities did not disclose the identity of the captured militia commander, but residents said the building that came under attack was a base of operations for a man known as Abu Deraa, a top commander of the Mahdi Army, the restless and potent Shiite militia that answers to the militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

In a concurrent operation on Friday, Iraqi police officers captured Adnan al-Unaybi, who, according to the American military command, is in charge of a wing of the Mahdi Army operating in Babil province, south of Baghdad. The military said in a statement that he was accused of smuggling weapons, bankrolling terrorism, attacking American troops, inciting sectarian violence and "spying for two foreign governments." The statement did not identify the two governments.

Taken together, the raids were a rare strike by the Shiite-led government security forces against forces linked to al-Sadr, and suggested that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki was making good on his vow to crack down on Sunni Arab and Shiite militias alike in an effort to halt the accelerating cycles of sectarian violence that have begun to cleave Iraq into ethnic enclaves.

Al-Sadr's militia has frequently been accused by Sunni Arab leaders and American officials of kidnapping and killing Sunni Arabs, sometimes in retaliation for similar crimes against Shiites by Sunni death squads.

But the Shiite-dominated government has been hesitant to tangle with al-Sadr, in part because of his wide political and social influence. He commands a vast Shiite following, and his allies control at least 30 of Parliament's 275 seats and several important ministries, making him one of Iraq's most powerful political leaders.

In the last large-scale government raid aimed at al-Sadr's allies, Iraqi forces, with the support of American troops, raided a Shiite mosque in Baghdad frequented by his followers, killing at least 16 people. The March raid infuriated al-Sadr's community and members of the national Shiite political leadership, who were appalled that soldiers had stormed a place of worship. But American officials said the building was not a mosque, but rather a citadel for Shiite militiamen to stage attacks against government forces.

Some Shiite leaders criticized the Friday raid and warned that it could provoke al-Sadr's followers to take up arms against government security forces. In 2004, al-Sadr led two bloody revolts against American forces.