Radical anti-US Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said on Monday he is giving the Iraqi government a "last chance" to implement reforms, or popular demonstrations would be called.

"This is the last chance before setting a date for open, peaceful, popular, demonstrations," Sadr said in a statement released by his office in the holy city of Najaf, without specifying how much time he was giving the government.

Sadr called on the government to give all Iraqis a share of the country's oil wealth, create jobs for 50,000 unemployed people nationwide, and provide free fuel for private generators, until Iraq's destitute electricity sector is improved.

"If these demands are achieved without delay... the open demonstration will be postponed indefinitely," Sadr said.

The cleric in February gave the government six months to improve services, threatening to call protests otherwise.

Sadr's bloc holds six cabinet posts and has 40 seats in parliament.

Iraqi doctor and brother killed in Kirkuk: police
Kirkuk, Iraq (AFP) Sept 5, 2011 - Gunmen shot dead an Iraqi neurologist and his brother in the northern disputed city of Kirkuk on Monday, police said, while five people were wounded by a roadside bomb in Baghdad.

Police said that Doctor Yalderin Abbas al-Damarchi, a 48-year-old Shiite Turkmen father of four, was killed by gunmen along with his brother, Zein al-Abdeen, while driving after he left his clinic in central Kirkuk.

Sadiq Omar Rasul, the general director of the Kirkuk health directorate, confirmed Damarchi's death, saying the attack was an attempt to "create chaos in Iraq."

Kurdistan wants to incorporate the restive, ethnically mixed and oil-rich Kirkuk province into its autonomous north Iraq region, a move strongly opposed by authorities in Baghdad.

Meanwhile, two civilians and three soldiers were wounded by a roadside bomb that exploded in Al-Amriyah area of Baghdad near an army checkpoint, an interior ministry official said.

Violence is down across Iraq from its peak in 2006 and 2007, but attacks remain common. A total of 239 people were killed in violence in the country in August, according to official figures.

Related Links
Iraq: The first technology war of the 21st century

Tweet