U.S. General David Petraeus says that a secret cell of the Jaish al-Mahdi (al-Mahdi Army) is responsible for the kidnapping of 5 British civilians last month in Baghdad, and that he believes they are the same terrorists responsible for the January Karbala massacre:

Via The Times Online (UK):

General Petraeus said that Britain and the US had suffered at the hands of the group he blamed for abducting the British hostages. He identified it as a secret cell of al-Mahdi Army, a Shia Muslim militia loyal to the firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. “We think that it is the same network that killed our soldiers in Karbala in an operation back in January,” he said. “We killed the head of that network less than a week before the operation that detained those British civilians. It was already planned and carried out by his followers. It is a secret cell of Jaish al-Mahdi [al-Mahdi Army] not all of which are under control of Moqtada al-Sadr.”

Of the cell responsible for the kidnap, he said: “They are not rank-and-file Jaish al-Mahdi. They are trained in Iran, equipped with Iranian [weapons], and advised by Iran. The Iranian involvement here we have found to be much, much more significant than we thought before. They have since about the summer of 2004 played a very, very important role in training in Iran, funding, arming.”

General Petraeus said "he believed that the men, four security guards and a consultant, were alive and added that there had been repeated attempts to free them." Prayers for the success of the search and rescue mission, and the elimination of the al-Mahdi Army. Previous:

al-Sadr's Militia Claims Kidnapping of Brits

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