BAGHDAD, April 5 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The U.S. occupation forces said Monday, April 5, it had issued an arrest warrant for Moqtada Sadr, as the Shiite leader vowed defiance calling for an end to the one-year American occupation of the oil-rich country.

"The arrest warrant for Moqtada Sadr was issued in the last several months," U.S. military spokesman Dan Senor told a news conference.

Senor said the timing of the arrest warrant was determined by the Iraqi judge investigating last April's murder – a year ago - of Abdel Majid al-Khoei, a pro-Western leader who was stabbed inside a holy shrine in Najaf.

The spokesman also denounced Sadr's supporters who have battled U.S. troops across Iraq in the past 48 hours.

"The Iraqi police want elections not mob violence," he said.

'Proud'

A close aide of Sadr, meanwhile, said the Iraqi leader was "proud" to be an outlaw after U.S. civil administrator Paul Bremer branded him outside the law.

"If Bremer means that Sayed Moqtada is an outlaw according to the U.S. laws, then I'm proud of it," Sadr aide Sheikh Qais al-Khazaalie told Agence France-Presse (AFP), quoting the Shiite leader after a meeting.

"If he means that Sayed Moqtada is an outlaw according to Sharia (Islamic law) and the laws we know, then Bremer knows nothing about these laws and it is he who violates these laws," he said.

"We reject all kinds of occupation and hegemony. Everything is going to be changed."

'Keeping Resistance'

The aide said Sadr was staying at the Kufa shrine just outside the Shiite holy city of Najaf, where his militiamen were protecting him.

"We will continue seeking peaceful ways of resistance and will not do anything that breaks the rule ... Our methods will be strikes and other peaceful ways that terrorize them".

Bremer pledged that U.S. forces would stop Sadr from trying to seize authority in the country after the protests by his followers.

Eight U.S. and one Salvadoran soldier have been killed in the fighting alongside at least 52 Iraqi death. Press reports put at 46 the Iraqi death toll.

More Attacks

In the meantime, Arab newspapers Monday expected attacks on U.S.-led forces to increase after the  violent Shiite protests.

Lebanese daily As-Safir said the "Shiites of Iraq have rebelled against the occupiers and took to the street to terrorize the enemy after realizing that peaceful demonstrations have led nowhere".

 Another Lebanese paper, Al-Diyar, described the clashes between Sadr's followers and the U.S. forces as a popular revolt that adds to the resistance in the Sunni areas," east, west and north of Baghdad where American soldiers have been blighted by daily attacks.

Egypt's state-run Al-Ahram newspaper said Sadr's revolt marked the beginning of "a very dangerous phase" in strife-ridden Iraq.

"Violence and resistance will not only be directed against occupation forces, but could turn into internal strife pitting groups of different orientation and belonging," it added in an editorial.

Shiite scholars have warned earlier Monday that U.S. troops of acting "irrationally" after up to 52 Iraqi protesters were killed on Sunday, April 4, in the worst confrontations between Iraq’s Shiite majority and the U.S.-led occupation troops sine the start of the invasion one year ago.

The protesters were denouncing the crushing of two fellowmen by a U.S. tank on Saturday, April 3, the arrest of Sadr’s top assistant Sheikh Mostafa Al-Yaqoubi and a ban on Al-Hawza newspaper, Sadr’s mouthpiece.

The clashes dragged on Monday in Baghdad suburb Sadr city after U.S. overseer in Iraq Paul Bremer designated Sadr as an “outlaw”.