BAGHDAD, April 20: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice backed Iraq’s crackdown on militias in a visit on Sunday to Baghdad, where the worst fighting in weeks erupted after cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threatened all-out war.

Rockets blasted the fortified Green Zone compound where Rice met Iraqi officials and praised their month-old campaign against Sadr’s followers. She had harsh words for the reclusive cleric, who on the eve of Rice’s visit vowed “open war” if the crackdown continues.

Sadr has not appeared in public in Iraq in nearly a year. “He is still living in Iran. I guess it’s all out war for anybody but him,” Rice told reporters. “His followers can go to their death and he will still be in Iran.”

A military spokesman said US forces had killed 20 fighters overnight in a series of gunbattles and helicopter missile strikes in Sadr City, the east Baghdad neighbourhood that is a stronghold of Sadr’s militia.

“I would say it’s been the hottest night in a couple of weeks,” the spokesman, Lt-Col Steven Stover, said.

Arriving on an unannounced visit, Rice met Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and said she wanted to support what she called a new political “centre” in Iraq that has backed Maliki’s anti-militia campaign.

“It is indeed a moment of opportunity in Iraq thanks to the courageous decisions taken by the prime minister and a unified Iraqi leadership,” Rice said in brief televised remarks with President Jalal Talabani after they held talks.

Fighting by Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia — whose tens of thousands of fighters control the streets in many Shia areas — could abruptly end a period of lower violence at a time when some US forces are starting to leave Iraq.

Rice did not take questions during the televised appearance, and later told reporters she did not know how seriously to take Sadr’s threat of war, made in a statement on his website.

The cleric’s threat dramatically raises the stakes in his confrontation with Maliki, who has threatened to ban Sadr’s movement from political life unless he disbands his militia.

Maliki’s crackdown has led over the past month to Iraq’s worst fighting in nearly a year, spreading through many parts of Baghdad. Although fighting in the south has died down, the Baghdad clashes have continued unabated.

The crackdown has been backed by all parties across Iraq’s sectarian and ethnic divide except the Sadrist movement.—Reuters