Pat Dollard | Young Americans

NAJAF, Iraq, Feb 12 (Reuters) - Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has not decided if he will extend his Mehdi Army militia ceasefire when it expires this month despite a U.S. military belief that he will, Sadr’s spokesman said on Tuesday.

Salah al-Ubaidi said recent Iraqi and U.S. security operations had targeted followers of the influential Shi’ite cleric in several cities, complicating a decision that is being seen as a pivotal development in Iraq.

U.S. and Iraqi officials say Sadr’s six-month ceasefire order on Aug. 29 helped cut violence across the country. A return to fighting could seriously jeopardize those gains.

The U.S. military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, told Reuters on Monday that U.S. forces had been informed the anti-American cleric would renew the six-month truce.

On Tuesday, a senior Iraqi government official in Baghdad told Reuters the Shi’ite-led administration expected Sadr to extend the freeze on the activities of the Mehdi Army, which the Pentagon once called the greatest threat to peace in Iraq.

“This is an attempt to provoke a reaction. It is an attempt to uncover what stance Moqtada al-Sadr will take,” Ubaidi said in the southern Shi’ite city of Najaf, where Sadr’s main offices are based, when asked to comment on Petraeus’ remarks.

Sadr, whose followers hold sway in poor Shi’ite areas of Baghdad and across parts of the mainly Shi’ite south, imposed the truce after clashes between the Mehdi Army and Iraqi police in the holy city of Kerbala that killed dozens of people.

He ordered the truce to allow him to clamp down on wayward elements of his splintered militia.

Ubaidi listed several cities where he said Sadr’s followers had been targeted including the Sadr City district in Baghdad, the cleric’s powerbase in the capital and where U.S. troops clashed with militiamen last week.

“It is difficult to predict what will happen after those fierce attacks last week against Sadr’s followers in Sadr City, Kut, Diwaniya, Kerbala and Hilla,” Ubaidi said.

“The reasons for extending the freeze depend on several elements, of which the key one is not to expose the back of the Sadr movement to its enemies inside and outside (Iraq).”

Sadr, who led two uprisings against U.S. troops in 2004, has come under mounting pressure from his movement to scrap the truce because of perceptions the security forces are using the pause in hostilities to detain his followers.

The U.S. military says it has continued to target what it calls “rogue” Mehdi Army militants, who U.S. commanders say receive funding and weapons from neighbouring Iran.

Petraeus, without saying who passed on the information about the truce renewal, said he would wait to see what Sadr did and that the military was preparing for whatever the outcome was.

The U.S. military has praised Sadr for imposing the truce and said it had allowed U.S. and Iraqi security forces to focus more attention on fighting Sunni Islamist al Qaeda.

Sadr is the son of a revered Shi’ite cleric killed under Saddam Hussein. He has long demanded U.S. forces leave Iraq. (Additional reporting by Dean Yates and Sean Maguire in Baghdad, Editing by Sami Aboudi)