Al Sadr for Blood Pact against US

Baghdad, Aug 16 (Prensa Latina) Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr called for his followers to seal a blood pact to resist the foreign resistance in Iraq, when multiple bomb attacks have killed over 60 people in the country.

Al-Sadr, chief of the Mahdi Army militia, urged believers "to sign a blood oath of loyalty to Imam Mahdi" to fight the presence of troops from US and other foreign governments in this Arab nation.

The blood pact commits the faithful to "take part in the resistance of all Muslim countries and especially in Iraq, military and ideologically, against occupiers, colonizers and the western laic thinking."

Shortly after Al-Sadr's call to sign the oath, Iraqi authorities reported that six people were killed and another 11 wounded Saturday in a bomb attack hitting the Ur neighbourhood, northeast of Baghdad.

Another car bomb was detonated in a parking zone of the Balad district, in the northern province of Salah al-Din, killing nine civilians and injuring another 40, the police of that demarcation reported today.

Meanwhile, a release from the US Central Command in Iraq stated that one soldier died due to unknown causes during combat in Baghdad, so US death tolls this month have already reached 16.

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