Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s political movement accused Washington on Saturday of trying to provoke a confrontation, after the arrest of a top aide to the militia leader, who is an ally of Iraq’s Shi’ite prime minister. Abdul-Hadi al-Darraji, a spokesman for Sadr, was among at least three people arrested by U.S. and Iraqi troops in a midnight raid on Sadr City, a stronghold of Sadr’s Mehdi Army in northeast Baghdad where U.S. forces rarely venture. Abdul Mahdi Mtiri, a member of the Sadrists’ political committee, said Iraqi officials had promised Darraji would be released. “We don’t know how serious this promise is because so far he has not been released,” Mtiri told Reuters. Full Story