Maliki closes Sadr radio station

BAGHDAD, May 8 (UPI) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered a halt Thursday to broadcasts from the al-Ahad radio station of Moqtada Sadr as residents flee escalating violence.

U.S. and Iraqi forces Thursday delivered a message from Maliki to the station headquarters in Baghdad ordering it to cease operations, Voices of Iraq said.

Station manager Abid Abu-Zahra and several lawmakers with the Sadrist Movement decried the move, saying the station carried an educational message of peace.

Sadrist lawmaker Fawzee Akram called the move an "unprecedented step" of government censorship.

In related news, the Iraqi government set up emergency shelters in Baghdad for residents fleeing Sadr City ahead of what some reports say is a major military operation, the official Kuwaiti News Agency said Thursday.

"The government plans to establish special areas used by people from Sadr City who left their houses and lived in more secured areas because of threats posed by outlawed gunmen on one side and the military operations taking place inside the city on the other," Iraq government spokesman Tahsin al-Sheikhly said.

The military sent more than 50 trucks filled with emergency food supplies to Sadr City, the spokesman said.