Al Sadr ministers quit cabinet

Baghdad: The radical cleric Moqtada Al Sadr ordered his followers in the cabinet to abandon their posts yesterday, the head of the cleric's parliamentary bloc said, blaming the Iraqi leadership's refusal to respond to demands for a timetable for US withdrawal.

The order is unlikely to topple Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki's regime. Al Sadr's ministers will "withdraw immediately from the Iraqi government and give the six cabinet seats to the government, with the hope that they will be given to independents who represent the will of the people," said Nasser Al Rubaie, head of Al Sadr's bloc.

The prime minister issued a statement saying "the withdrawal of multinational forces is linked to our armed forces' readiness to take over the security command."

In Washington, US President George W. Bush warned that he would reject a pending war-funding bill if it comes with a deadline for troop withdrawal.