DHAKA: A Shia militia leader arrested in Iraq after his group fired mortars into Saudi Arabia has said leaders of prime minister Nuri al-Maliki’s political bloc will be killed unless he is released within 24 hours.

Wathiq al-Battat, speaking on a mobile phone he said had been given him by a sympathetic prison guard, said he was being held without charge in solitary confinement in a small, cold cell, with no access to lawyers or his family.

Battat was detained in Baghdad on January 2, six weeks after his Iranian-backed al-Mukhtar Army fired six mortar bombs from southern Iraq into the Saudi desert, causing no casualties.

He said the attack was a warning to Saudi Arabia to stop meddling in Iraqi affairs, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 1518 HRS, JAN 21, 2014