The religious leader of Iraq’s biggest Shia militia ordered his followers yesterday to stop fighting Iraqi security forces, explaining that an earlier threat of all-out war had been directed at US and British troops alone.

“I call upon my brothers in the army, police and al-Mahdi Army to stop the bloodshed,” Hojetoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr, the influential cleric, said in a statement read out on his behalf at a Baghdad mosque during Friday prayers. “When we threatened an open war, it was meant against the occupation and not against our people. There will be no war between Sadrists and Iraqi brothers from any groups.”

The black-turbaned cleric, who has not been seen in public for almost a year and is believed to be studying in Iran, also urged the Iraqi security forces to distance themselves from US and British troops.

His comments came as US and Iraqi forces pushed on with operations to combat rogue elements of al-Mahdi Army and other armed gangs in the Shia stronghold of Sadr City in east Baghdad.

An offensive is also under way in Iraq’s second city of Basra but Iraqi soldiers and police are no longer facing much resistance.

The Basra campaign, started a month ago by Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister, sparked fierce clashes across Shia-dominated southern Iraq as well as Baghdad, prompting Hojatoleslam al-Sadr to issue his war warning last Saturday.

The cleric, who initiated two uprisings against US forces in 2004, ordered a ceasefire last summer that is regarded as a key factor in a reduction in violence across the country over the subsequent months. Fighting in recent weeks, however, has pushed this to the brink of collapse.

The prospect of another Shia uprising could unravel much of the gains made on the security front at a time when US forces are starting to withdraw.

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