Muqtada Al Sadr: Power broker and peace maker??? [Archive]

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Bman

05-30-2005, 12:21 AM

Trinity

05-30-2005, 12:23 AM

Oh.... is this about Iran's puppet......

the man who claims to be a 'religious leader' with absolutely no education?

Bman

05-30-2005, 12:24 AM

Oh.... is this about Iran's puppet......

the man who claims to be a 'religious leader' with absolutely no education?

That would be him...

seems he's the FIRST GUY in Iraq to bring Sunnis and Shias together in agreement

Bman

zapcomix

05-30-2005, 12:25 AM

[QUOTE=Bman]Muqtada will someday be President of Iraq. You heard it here first./QUOTE]
LMAO

don't know what I did, but oh well.

Rightwingnut

05-30-2005, 12:25 AM

Trinity

05-30-2005, 12:25 AM

That would be him...

seems he's the FIRST GUY in Iraq to bring Sunnis and Shias together in agreement

Bman

That would be Sistani behind the scenes..... the only thing Sadr does successfully is rally the troops round the mortar tube......

Never forget that he IS Iran's pawn.... which is not a good thing for a flurishing democratic Iraq.

PROGENY

05-30-2005, 12:28 AM

Why this guy isn't dead is beyond me, a grave mistake if you ask me, and now he's making power plays. Rediculous.

Bman

05-30-2005, 12:29 AM

We should have Kacked that fucker when we had the chance. Just another in the long line of mistakes that transformed Iraq into the wonderful, deadly, American killing mess we know and love today.

Sorry and all that, But I am FULLY convinced that that little bastard is MUCH more responsible for the insurgency than some guy named Zarqawi. He's clever though..trying to Broker a peace in a battle he promoted.

AGAIN, I agree with you... Sadr is more of a threat than Zarqawi would ever be

BTW, the reason we didn't kill Sadr had something to do with Sistani, I believe.. DIdn't Sistani himself WALK to Najaf with 100,000 Iraqis or whatever to rescue Sadr who was surrounded by US troops?

Bman

Catwoman

05-30-2005, 12:31 AM

Oh what a fuck up! From day one. I fucking hate Rumsfield and his head should have been delivered on a platter long ago.

PROGENY

05-30-2005, 12:31 AM

Rightwingnut

05-30-2005, 12:33 AM

AGAIN, I agree with you... Sadr is more of a threat than Zarqawi would ever be

BTW, the reason we didn't kill Sadr had something to do with Sistani, I believe.. DIdn't Sistani himself WALK to Najaf with 100,000 Iraqis or whatever to rescue Sadr who was surrounded by US troops?

Bman

Hmmm I am not sure. I think that had more to do with preveneting American troops from entering an ancient Mosque than it did backing Sadr. If I remember right Sistani refused to publicly acknowledge any kind of support for Al Sadr. Of course, that doesnt mean he didnt support him behind the scenes.

Trinity

05-30-2005, 12:34 AM

Bman

05-30-2005, 12:39 AM

Hmmm I am not sure. I think that had more to do with preveneting American troops from entering an ancient Mosque than it did backing Sadr. If I remember right Sistani refused to publicly acknowledge any kind of support for Al Sadr. Of course, that doesnt mean he didnt support him behind the scenes.

Here's how it went down, according to the "liberal media"

Top Cleric Brokers Deal To End Battle In Najaf
Militia, U.S. Would Leave; Mortar Attack Kills Dozens
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, August 27, 2004; Page A01

BAGHDAD, Aug. 27 -- In an agreement brokered by the top Shiite Muslim religious figure in Iraq, rebellious cleric Moqtada Sadr agreed Thursday night to withdraw his militia from a contested shrine and other parts of the city of Najaf after three weeks of fighting against U.S. and Iraqi forces, government and religious leaders said. The deal commits the country's interim government to significant concessions.

In exchange for Sadr's compliance, the government pledged to pull U.S. military forces out of Najaf and to allow Sadr, who had been wanted by the former U.S. occupation authority on murder charges, to participate in politics.
"He is as free as any Iraqi citizen to do whatever he would like in Iraq," said Qasim Dawood, a minister of state, after announcing the government's acceptance of the peace plan arranged by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

The accord was reached on a day when more than 45 people died in a mortar attack and other violence in Najaf and the neighboring town of Kufa, which are about 90 miles south of Baghdad.

Members of Sadr's Mahdi Army, a well-armed militia that numbers in the low thousands, will be allowed to leave Najaf and return to their homes without any sanction, despite having fought against U.S. and Iraqi security forces for three weeks. The agreement allows thousands of Shiite pilgrims to enter the closed-off city in the early hours of Friday morning to visit the shrine of Imam Ali, providing an opportunity for militiamen holed up there to melt into the throng and avoid detection as they depart.

At 6:30 a.m. Friday, authorities in Najaf permitted the pilgrims to enter the city and walk toward the shrine. The crowd, estimated at more than 10,000 people, was searched for weapons by Iraqi police officers at the edge of Najaf's Old City district, where the shrine is located. As they streamed toward the shrine, marchers chanted "God is great" and raised their hands in the air.

Sadr, who has reneged on peace deals in the past, did not issue a statement of acceptance, but senior government officials and a top aide to Sistani expressed optimism that Sadr would comply with the terms of this agreement, which was reached during a meeting between Sistani and Sadr. "Mr. Moqtada Sadr has agreed to the proposals from his eminence, Ayatollah Ali Sistani," said Sistani's top aide, Hamed Khafaf.

At 8 a.m. Friday, a message conveyed from Sadr was broadcast from the shrine's loudspeakers instructing militiamen to depart with the crowd. "Drop your weapons and leave Najaf and Kufa," the announcement said. "You have done a great job."

If Sadr's militiamen leave the shrine -- and the Reuters news agency reported some were turning in their weapons and changing into civilian clothes -- it would end a conflict that has claimed hundreds of lives and roiled Iraq's Shiite majority, who have been concerned that using force to resolve the standoff could damage the gold-domed edifice. "Iraq has achieved a victory today," Dawood said at a Thursday night news conference. "No more fights. Najaf and Kufa will be peaceful cities, free from arms, free from militias."

The U.S. military, which ceased offensive operations on Thursday because of the peace talks, did not withdraw from positions inside Najaf after the deal was announced. Dawood said U.S. forces would be instructed to "draw back" by the interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, once Sadr's militia departs.

The arrangement was a vivid indication of the enormous clout Sistani wields among Iraq's Shiites. His objections to American plans for Iraq's political transition forced the U.S. occupation authority to make substantial changes on two occasions. But in recent months, some political and religious leaders wondered whether Sistani, a reclusive 73-year-old who believes in the separation of religion and government, was losing followers to Sadr, a mercurial man in his early thirties who lacks Sistani's clerical credentials but plays a more activist form of street politics.

Last week, Sistani's aides demanded that Sadr hand over the keys to the shrine, but Sadr's aides refused, insisting that a transfer had to be done on their terms. The exchange seemed to suggest that Sistani lacked the power to rein in Sadr.

But Thursday's compromise indicated Sistani was still the most influential cleric in Iraq, a man who can force both Sadr and the interim government to yield to his middle-ground approach. When Sistani arrived in the southern port city of Basra on Wednesday after a trip to Britain for treatment of a heart condition, Dawood and another cabinet minister flew to meet him and discuss his peace plan. Shortly after Sistani's police-escorted convoy reached Najaf Thursday afternoon, Sadr came calling.

"Sayyid Ali Sistani has played a very important role in bringing about peace," said Dawood, using the honorific reserved for descendants of the prophet Muhammad.

The deal also revealed the limits of the power of Iraq's interim government. Allawi and other senior officials had sought to avoid any resolution that would allow Sadr's militia to reconstitute itself, favoring the use of force to kill or capture as many militiamen as possible. But because the government could not rely on its security forces alone to deal with the threat, it was forced to seek assistance from the U.S. military. That put the government in an untenable position: If U.S. forces stormed the shrine, Shiites would be outraged, but if they didn't, Sadr's men could drag out the confrontation for weeks.

A senior Iraqi official, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that Sistani's deal will allow the militiamen to return unchallenged to their homes in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. "We're going to let most of them get away," the official said.

But the official expressed hope that by ending the standoff and allowing Sadr's supporters to participate in politics, the plan would cause the militia to be weakened and eventually demobilized. "If the shrine is clear, it will help us pursue our main objective of dismantling his militia," the official said.

Other Iraqi officials and Western diplomats in Iraq contend that any deal that allows Sadr and many of his most loyal followers to escape will pose an continuing threat to the interim government. The militia does not have a formal roster of members who can be offered jobs or cash incentives to lay down their weapons. And as long as Sadr, who has been charged with murder in the death of a fellow cleric, remains free to preach and rally his loyalists, he will have the power to reconstitute a militia, the officials and diplomats said.

Under the terms of the agreement, Najaf and Kufa would become "demilitarized zones" that are off-limits to militias and foreign military forces; only Iraqi police and National Guard units would be permitted to patrol the areas. Sistani also demanded that the interim government compensate residents whose homes were destroyed in the fighting.

The senior government official said a date has not been set for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Najaf. "It is contingent upon Najaf becoming a safe place, free of militants," the official said. "If the standoff is resolved and the militants leave Najaf, then the presence of foreign forces in Najaf will not be necessary."

U.S. commanders in the city said Thursday night that they had not received orders to withdraw.

The peace deal was forged after one of the most violent and chaotic days in the three-week confrontation.

On Thursday morning, before Sistani's return to Najaf, three mortar shells slammed into the grounds of the main mosque in Kufa, killing at least 27 people and wounding 63. The marble courtyard was covered with pools of blood and torn clothing as survivors frantically dragged the wounded to a makeshift first-aid station. Overwhelmed ambulance drivers ferried the wounded to the overflowing local hospital, where relatives wailed next to gurneys carrying bloodied young men.

People at the mosque blamed the U.S. military for the attack, but U.S. military officials denied responsibility. A military spokesman said no operations were being conducted near the shrine.

A short while later, unidentified gunmen fired into a group walking on the main road from Kufa to Najaf. At least 15 people were killed, according to hospital officials.

The shooting caused the marchers to disperse as they sought cover. When a small contingent reassembled, they began shouting: "Where are the religious leaders? Where is the government? They let the Iraqis kill each other."

After Sistani's arrival, there was a shooting in Najaf, as hundreds of his supporters, as well as many Sadr loyalists, tried to converge on the house where Sistani had decamped. Police officials said gunmen in the crowd began firing, prompting the police to return fire. At least 10 people were killed and 38 wounded, hospital officials said.

At Najaf's hospital, an employee told the Reuters news agency: "Go look at the morgue. It's full."

Iraq's Health Ministry put the death toll for the day at 74, with 315 wounded, but that count included militiamen killed in clashes with security forces.

The fighting in Najaf also claimed the life of a U.S. Marine on Thursday, the second to be killed in two days, bringing to 11 the number of American military personnel lost in Najaf since the conflict began on Aug. 5.

Correspondent Karl Vick and special correspondent Naseer Nouri in Najaf contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34370-2004Aug26?language=printer

Bman

05-30-2005, 12:56 AM

Meanwhile, seems Iraqis have chosen their version of James Monroe, author of the US Constitution....

Very little attention was paid to this in the US media.

Shiite cleric to chair committee drafting Iraq's new constitution

Sunni and Kurd named deputies
By Sinan Salaheddin
ASSOCIATED PRESS
6:58 a.m. May 24, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A Shiite cleric was chosen Tuesday to chair the committee drafting Iraq's new constitution while a Sunni Arab and a Kurd will be his deputies, as the government seeks a charter reflecting the country's ethnic and religious makeup.

Hummam Hammoudi, a deputy with the United Iraqi Alliance, said he will chair the 55-member committee, while Sunni Arab legislator Adnan al-Janabi and Kurdish lawmaker Fouad Massoum will be his deputies.

"I have been picked as the head of the committee," Hammoudi told The Associated Press.

The committee was chosen by consensus among the parties represented in the 275-member National Assembly and presented to the parliament speaker. A formal announcement was not made.

Hammoudi is a senior aide to Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, the dominant party in the United Iraqi Alliance, which controls the largest bloc in the assembly. Al-Hakim also leads the alliance.

"Sheikh Hummam Hammoudi of the alliance list was elected as the president of the committee," Massoum confirmed, adding that he and al-Janabi were named deputies.

The assembly has just 17 Sunni Arab members after the minority group largely decided not to participate in January's elections, either in protest or fear of reprisal by insurgents.

Sunni extremists are believed to make up the core of the insurgency, adding urgency to calls for more inclusion of the minority in Iraq's political processes.

Shiites make up about 60 percent of the country's estimated 26 million people and the Kurds 20 percent. Sunni Arabs, who comprise about 20 percent, enjoyed decades of dominance under ousted leader Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime.

Prime Minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari's interim government faces a tight deadline because it needs a new constitution drafted by mid-August and submitted to a referendum by Oct. 15. If approved, new elections must be held by Dec. 15, according to Iraq's transitional law.

Under the interim constitution, if two-thirds of voters in at least three of Iraq's 18 provinces reject the draft constitution, the National Assembly will be dissolved and new elections will be held.

During a recent visit to Iraq, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Iraq's government must move quickly to write a constitution that reflects the full spectrum ethnic and religious groups in Iraq.

Al-Hakim told the AP that Sunni Arabs should participate in drafting the new constitution.

"It is necessary to have an active participation in this period by all parts of the Iraqi people and among them Sunni Arabs," he said. "They should have a real participation and their points of view should be taken seriously.

Earlier this month, the National Assembly appointed a 55-member committee of legislators from Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish groups to draw up the charter, but the committee included only two Sunnis, including al-Janabi.

Concerns have been raised that the Shiite-dominated government and al-Jaafari, leader of the conservative Islamic Dawa party, may seek to turn Iraq into an Islamic state. The government has said it wants the constitution to reflect the Islamic character of Iraq, while the Kurds have threatened to reject any attempt to turn the country into a religious state.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top Shiite cleric, wants to make sure the new constitution respects the country's Islamic identity.

Radical anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite with a large following, told an Iraqi television network Monday that "as long as Iraq is occupied we will not take part in drafting the constitution. We consider the Quran as our constitution."

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20050524-0658-iraq-constitution.html

Trinity

05-30-2005, 01:05 AM

Bman... if you search out that term on this site, there has been a fair bit of attention given to it.

Bman

05-30-2005, 10:50 PM

Bman... if you search out that term on this site, there has been a fair bit of attention given to it.

What term is that?

Bman

Groder Mullet

05-30-2005, 10:54 PM

The Kurds and Sunnis would never allow a Iran-style theocracy. Civil war would erupt if the Shiites were dumb enough to try some shit like that.

Bman

05-30-2005, 10:58 PM

The Kurds and Sunnis would never allow a Iran-style theocracy. Civil war would erupt if the Shiites were dumb enough to try some shit like that.

The Kurds and Sunnis are 40% of the population.. that's NOTHING...

All you need is 1 vote more than half to do ANYTHING YOU WANT...

Just look at our own country

Bman

Groder Mullet

05-30-2005, 10:59 PM

The Kurds and Sunnis are 40% of the population.. that's NOTHING...

All you need is 1 vote more than half to do ANYTHING YOU WANT...

Just look at our own country

Bman

If that were true, then why did the Shiites need the Kurds to form the government??

Bman

05-30-2005, 11:04 PM

If that were true, then why did the Shiites need the Kurds to form the government??

Because of the special rules set up by the US government.

Once the Iraqi's write their own Constitution, they can do whatever they want

Bman

Trinity

05-30-2005, 11:26 PM

What term is that?

Bman

Islamic Dawa party

Groder Mullet

05-31-2005, 07:38 PM

Because of the special rules set up by the US government.

Once the Iraqi's write their own Constitution, they can do whatever they want

Bman

And you think the Kurds will stand by and let the Shia walk all over them? Or the Sunni's for that matter?

Bman

06-01-2005, 12:42 AM

And you think the Kurds will stand by and let the Shia walk all over them? Or the Sunni's for that matter?

What are they going to do with their 20% of the population or whatever it is??

Bman

Bman

06-05-2005, 10:44 PM

Posted on Sun, Jun. 05, 2005

Shiite cleric gains political strength
Followers take up fight inside the system
By Hamza Hendawi
Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Arguably Iraq’s most popular Shiite group, followers of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have packed away their guns and now speak of “political resistance” rather than martyrdom in battle.

Once dismissed as an upstart, the portly al-Sadr has been transformed into a respectable political figure, commanding the loyalty of key lawmakers and several Cabinet ministers.

“We are growing stronger and our appeal is becoming wider,” Ibrahim al-Jaberi, a senior official at al-Sadr’s office in Sadr City, said Saturday.

Sadr City is a sprawling Baghdad neighborhood that is home to some 2.5 million Shiites and the largest bastion of support for al-Sadr. It was named for the cleric’s father, the late Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, who was killed in 1999. The younger al-Sadr’s images are everywhere – on walls, shop widows, car windshields and even ice boxes used by street vendors selling sodas or ice cream.

In many ways, today’s “Sadrists” have changed since their heavily armed militia battled U.S. troops last fall, but their canny mix of politics, religious fervor and military capability make them the one group in postwar Iraq with the potential for rapid growth.

Since the fighting, al-Sadr has rebuilt ties with Iraq’s largest Shiite party, after months of tension threatened to escalate into violence.

His aides have been mediating between a Shiite militia and a Sunni group after they exchanged charges of involvement in the killing of each other’s clerics.

Ahmad Chalabi, a former Washington insider who is now one of Iraq’s most senior Shiite politicians, has actively been courting al-Sadr in an effort to widen his support. A deputy prime minister, Chalabi is known to be lobbying for the release of hundreds of Sadrists in U.S. detention and rescinding an arrest warrant for al-Sadr’s alleged role in the 2003 killing of a rival cleric.

In turn, al-Sadr has turned down his rhetoric – although he has not stopped calling for the Americans to leave. He is also no longer contemptuous, as he once was, toward senior Shiite clerics and comparatively secular politicians such as Chalabi.

Al-Sadr envoys also recently traveled to the Kurdish region in northern Iraq for talks with its leaders, long viewed as American stooges by the Sadrists.

Legislators have also traveled south down the insurgent-infested road to the holy city of Najaf to call on al-Sadr, whose relative youth – he’s believed to be in his early 30s – and lack of academic pedigree had led many to dismiss him.

In large part, the Sadrists’ new strength is evident in the discipline and organization shown by their Imam al-Mahdi Army, the militia that battled U.S. forces last year. The militia has quietly been restructured since the fighting ended last fall.

It is widely suspected of having hidden most of its weapons after the fighting, while hundreds of militia commanders last week finished a 45-day course in discipline and religious indoctrination that among other things involved dawn-to-dusk fasts.

At least in public, the militia now resembles an outfit that is part relief organization and part neighborhood vigilante.

The group has quietly taken control of security in Sadr City, making it by far the safest area in blood-soaked Baghdad.

The militia goes on public view on Fridays, when thousands of al-Sadr followers gather to perform weekly prayers – an event used since Saddam Hussein’s fall to project its message, reassert its devotion to al-Sadr and renew animosity toward the Americans.

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/fortwayne/news/local/11821544.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Bman

06-13-2005, 12:57 PM

Sadr's consolidating his foreign allies.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press

June 13, 2005 Monday 5:08 AM Eastern Time

Russian Ambassador Meets With Iraqi Cleric

NAJAF, Iraq

The Russian ambassador to Iraq flew to this southern city Monday and started talks with the anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the embassy said.

Ambassador Vlidimer Chamov was making the first visit by a Russian envoy to al-Sadr's office since the war in Iraq started two years ago, embassy protocol chief Ivan Zhurba said.

Zhurba had no details on the purpose of the talks, but both Russia and al-Sadr were fierce opponents of the war.

The talks come amid a raging insurgency that has killed more than 940 people since Iraq's new Shiite-led government was announced April 28.

Sheik Jalil al-Nouri, an al-Sadr aide in Najaf, confirmed that the talks had started and that a delegation of Sunni tribal leaders from the volatile Anbar province towns of Ramadi and Fallujah was expected to meet with al-Sadr later.

"The meeting was held to develop the relationship between Russia and Muqtada al-Sadr because the al-Sadr movement is very influential and well-known in Iraq," al-Nouri said without providing further details.

He added that the meeting had nothing to do with al-Sadr's talks with the Anbar delegation.

Al-Sadr has recently taken on a higher public profile after emerging from months of hiding following clashes last year between U.S. troops and his own militiamen in Baghdad's impoverished Sadr City and Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad.

The fiery cleric, who violently opposes the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, has been negotiating between Shiite and Sunni groups who have accused each other of killing clerics from each community.

Bman

11-09-2005, 11:28 AM

As predicted.

Remember.. this is why your sons and cousins and the neighbor down the street are laying down their lives in Iraq... So that men like Moqtada Al Sadr can rule Iraq.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)

November 09, 2005, Wednesday

Sadr emerging as Iraq's political kingmaker

By Oliver Poole in Baghdad

MOQTADA al-Sadr, whose followers are blamed for the recent killings of British troops in Basra, has emerged as the political kingmaker expected to shape the country's government for the next four years after the election on Dec 15.

In recent days a procession of Iraq's most powerful political leaders has paid homage to the 31-year-old cleric.

A year ago the US military wanted him captured dead or alive after a series of uprisings in the south. Iraqis widely consider the present government, a coalition of religious Shia groups led by Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a failure because of its inability to improve the security situation or guarantee a steady supply of electricity or fresh water.

Sadr, who has more than three million supporters, is likely to hold the balance of power in the new parliament.

He boycotted the January election but has announced that his supporters would contest next month's election.

At the weekend Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is the dominant partner in the present government, visited Sadr's headquarters in Kufa to try to broker a deal.

Even Sunni politicians have begun negotiations with him, based on their shared anti-Americanism and demand for the withdrawal of all coalition troops.

Hussan Bazzaz, of the Centre for Culture and Opinion, in Baghdad, said that by sending conflicting signals Sadr was managing to enter politics while maintaining the image of an outsider on which his popularity largely lies.

"Moqtada is moving in a couple of different directions," he said.

"The last election only mattered for a couple of months. This time it determines power for four years. He is wise to become involved."

It seems certain that, under whatever deal he cuts, a number of his followers will receive important cabinet posts.

The Americans are insisting that they will work with any legally elected leader in Iraq.

But the question as to how Sadr, whose rhetoric is vehemently anti-Western and who saw hundreds of his supporters killed in last summer's gun battles, would manage to work with them remains uncertain.

Ponder

11-09-2005, 11:58 AM

Get a grip, Bman. The Sunni leaders are simply trying to keep him from telling his uneducated followers to boycott the elections next month. It's politics pure and simple, just another way to get votes. The Sunnis have no desire to shut themselves out, like last time.

Bman

11-09-2005, 12:03 PM

It's politics pure and simple, just another way to get votes. The Sunnis have no desire to shut themselves out, like last time.

What are you talking about???

The whole point of the article is that Sadr is becoming a big political force

NYC

11-11-2005, 09:13 AM

Bman

11-29-2005, 09:20 AM

The New York Times

November 27, 2005 Sunday
Late Edition - Final

Shiite Cleric Wields Violence and Popularity to Increase Power in Iraq

By EDWARD WONG; Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi and Joao Silva contributed reporting for this article.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 26

Men loyal to Moktada al-Sadr piled out of their cars at a plantation near Baghdad on a recent morning, bristling with Kalashnikov rifles and eager to exact vengeance on the Sunni Arab fighters who had butchered one of their Shiite militia brothers.

When the smoke cleared after the fight, at least 21 bodies lay scattered among the weeds, making it the deadliest militia battle in months. The black-clad Shiites swaggered away, boasting about the carnage.

Even as that battle raged on Oct. 27, Mr. Sadr's aides in Baghdad were quietly closing a deal that would signal his official debut as a kingmaker in Iraqi politics, placing his handpicked candidates on the same slate -- and on equal footing -- with the Shiite governing parties in the December parliamentary elections. The country's rulers had come courting him, and he had forced them to meet his terms.

Wielding violence and political popularity as tools of his authority, Mr. Sadr, the Shiite cleric who has defied the American authorities here since the fall of Saddam Hussein, is cementing his role as one of Iraq's most powerful figures.

Just a year after Mr. Sadr led two fierce uprisings, the Americans are hailing his entry into the elections as the best sign yet that the political process can co-opt insurgents.

But his ascent could portend a darker chain of events, for he continues to embrace his image as an unrepentant guerrilla leader even as he takes the reins of political power.

Mr. Sadr has made no move to disband his militia, the thousands-strong Mahdi Army. In recent weeks, factions of the militia have brazenly assaulted and abducted Sunni Arabs, rival Shiite groups, journalists and British-led forces in the south, where Mr. Sadr has a zealous following. At least 19 foreign soldiers and security contractors have been killed there since late summer, mostly by roadside bombs planted by Shiite militiamen who use Iranian technology, British officers say. The latest killing took place Nov. 20 near Basra.

''The fatality rate is quite high, much higher than it was a year ago,'' Maj. Gen. J. B. Dutton, the British commander in southern Iraq, said in a briefing to reporters.

Members of the Mahdi Army have also joined the police in large numbers, while retaining their loyalty to Mr. Sadr. Squad cars in Baghdad and southern cities cruise openly with pictures of Mr. Sadr taped to the windows. On Nov. 17, the American Embassy demanded that the Iraqi government prohibit private armies from controlling the Iraqi security forces, after American soldiers had found 169 malnourished prisoners, some of them tortured, in a Baghdad police prison reportedly under the command of a Shiite militia.

Mr. Sadr's oratory is as anti-American and incendiary as it has ever been. A recent article in Al Hawza, a weekly Sadr publication that the Americans tried unsuccessfully to close last year, carried the headline: ''Bush Family: Your Nights Will Be Finished.'' Another article explained that Mr. Sadr was supporting the December elections to rid Iraq of American-backed politicians who ''rip off the heads of the underprivileged and scatter the pieces of their children and elderly.''

Partly because of his uncompromising attitude, Mr. Sadr, who is in his early 30's, is immensely popular among impoverished Shiites. That has made him the most coveted ally of the governing Shiite parties as they head into the December elections. Mr. Sadr used this leverage to get 30 of his candidates on the Shiite coalition's slate, as many as the number allotted to each of the two main governing parties, the Dawa Islamic Party and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

Mr. Sadr's aides have already negotiated with those parties for executive offices and ministry posts in the next government. Bahaa al-Aaraji, an influential Sadr loyalist who was secretary of the constitutional committee, said in an interview that Mr. Sadr had urged him to take an executive office after the elections.

Early this month, the leader of the Supreme Council, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, went to the holy city of Najaf to visit Mr. Sadr in a gesture of solidarity. Mr. Hakim and Mr. Sadr are sons of deceased ayatollahs whose families have feuded. In August, the Mahdi Army stormed the offices of the Supreme Council across southern Iraq. Mr. Hakim's recent visit showed how much the mainstream Shiite leaders needed the support of Mr. Sadr, no matter how much they abhorred him.

''They are the largest group in the Shiite community,'' said Hajim al-Hassani, a secular Sunni Turkmen who is speaker of the transitional National Assembly. ''They will be a force to deal with in the elections. If they run separately, they would get most of the seats in the south.''

Mr. Sadr is also trying to use the elections to elevate his stature as a spiritual leader. Though his political group has joined the Shiite coalition, he has yet to endorse anyone. That is apparently because he wants to emulate the top ayatollahs in Iraq, collectively known as the marjaiyah, who usually stay above day-to-day politics. The most revered Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has said he will not back any single group in the elections.

''Moktada doesn't support any list,'' said Sheik Abbas al-Rubaie, Mr. Sadr's senior political aide. ''He has coordinated his opinion with that of the marjaiyah. They say they support everyone, but not any specific list.''

Mr. Sadr's support for the elections, though, is a marked change from last January, when he criticized the political process as a tool of the occupiers. Followers of Mr. Sadr at the time ran for transitional assembly seats, but not as official candidates of the Sadr movement. They won about two dozen seats and later got control of three ministries.

A Western diplomat said the Sadrists exhibited political acumen once in power. They recently sponsored an assembly bill demanding a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops. The bill did not pass, but its development ''showed an evolving political maturity,'' said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid the appearance of foreign interference in Iraqi politics.

But greater Sadrist participation in governance has done little to curb the activities of the Mahdi Army. Iraqi and British officials have suggested that Mr. Sadr's militia is tied to hundreds of policemen in Basra who form a shadowy force called the Jameat, a group involved in killings and torture. General Dutton, the British commander, said Shiite-on-Shiite violence was continuing. In addition, sophisticated material from Iran for making bombs is going to ''breakaway'' militiamen, he said.

It is unclear how much command Mr. Sadr and his top aides have over some factions of the militia.

''I think the Sadrists are a social movement, not really so much an organization,'' said Juan Cole, a specialist on Shiite Islam at the University of Michigan. ''So you have these neighborhood-based youth gangs masquerading as an 'army.' Then you have the mosque preachers loyal to Moktada who try to swing their congregations, and who interface with the youth gangs.''

On Nov. 12, after a car bomb killed 8 people and wounded at least 40 others in a Shiite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, dozens of gun-wielding Sadr loyalists sealed off the area, only occasionally admitting Iraqi policemen. A militiaman pulled up in a bulldozer to clear the debris. Others detained a man whom they accused of helping in the attack. They told a reporter they had gotten a confession out of him, and then they shoved him into a sedan and drove away.

Last month, militiamen near the Sadr City neighborhood in Baghdad abducted Rory Carroll, an Irish reporter for The Guardian. Senior Shiite officials said in interviews that the militiamen, acting without Mr. Sadr's approval, wanted to trade Mr. Carroll for a Mahdi Army commander imprisoned by the British in Basra. The kidnappers eventually released Mr. Carroll because of political pressure. Sheik Rubaie, Mr. Sadr's political aide, later said the Mahdi Army had nothing to do with the abduction.

Sadr officials are quite open, though, about the Mahdi Army's role in the deadly battle on Oct. 27, when the militiamen assaulted a Sunni Arab kidnapping ring in the farming area called Nahrawan, east of Baghdad. The Sunnis had abducted and mutilated a Sadrist and left his body parts strewn atop a car in a thicket of trees. When the Mahdi Army went to retrieve the body, the Sunnis opened fire with mortars, said Sheik Ghazi Naji Gannas, a local Shiite leader.

The militia retreated, then returned the next day with policemen for a final showdown. Sadr officials say the incident shows that the Mahdi Army can play a positive role in helping to secure Iraq. ''We coordinated with the government, and we acted with their acknowledgment,'' Sheik Rubaie said.

But Sheik Gannas said the Mahdi Army was also carrying out abductions in the area. The militia was as unruly and dangerous as the Sunni extremists, he added, and nothing but trouble lay ahead if the Iraqi government failed to rein it in.

''Thank God,'' he said, ''for this battle between the two sides.''

Bman

01-18-2006, 11:58 PM

Saudi king receives Iraqi cleric Moqtada Al Sadr

Sam Dagher
AFP
January 11, 2006

MINA, Saudi Arabia -- Saudi King Abdullah has held talks with radical Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada Al Sadr at his palace in Mina near the Muslim holy city of Mecca, while the annual Hajj pilgrimage wound down on Wednesday.

"The meeting was to strengthen relations between the two countries," the firebrand cleric said on Wednesday, declining to give details.

Saudi state television broadcast footage of the meeting which took place late on Tuesday, after which the Saudi monarch appeared showing Sadr around the palace. King Abdullah received Sadr again on Wednesday as part of a reception for dignitaries and world leaders who took part in the Hajj.

Sadr who led a bloody rebellion against US-led forces in Iraq in 2004, walked into the sumptuous conference room in his hallmark black robes and turban and sat to the left of the king.

The king addressed his guests praising the cohesion between pilgrims who descended on Mecca from different parts of the world.

"Had this unity which prevails during Hajj - overcoming differences in race and colour - dominated daily behavior between Muslims, our situation would have been different," he said.

Sadr later expressed pessimism about the future of his war-torn country following the December 15 legislative polls.

"I am pessimistic. Fanaticism and branding others as apostates dominate now," said Sadr, who was in Saudi Arabia to perform the Hajj for the first time in his life.

Sadr travelled overland from Iraq and was told by Saudi officials upon arrival that he was a guest of the king, according to the Iraqi Hajj delegation chief, Sheikh Khaled Al Atiyah.

Sadr, who only speaks Arabic, has rarely travelled abroad. His only known trip outside Iraq was to neighboring Iran to take part in a June 2003 commemoration of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's death.

The meeting between King Abdullah and Sadr was significant because of past tensions between the ultra-conservative Sunni kingdom and radical Shias in the Middle East.

In November 2005, Sadr's movement launched an international campaign to collect 8 million signatures in favor of reconstructing the shrines of four revered Shia imams in Medina, another holy city in western Saudi Arabia.

These shrines were destroyed at the start of the 20th century when the late King Abdul Aziz established the kingdom, according to Sadr's movement.

Sadr's meeting with the king comes after Saudi authorities on Saturday accused the outgoing government of Prime Minister Ibrahim Al Jaafari of favouring his Shia supporters in the distribution of Iraq's Hajj quota.

The Saudi system grants a country 1,000 permits for every 1 million of population in a bid to avoid overcrowding.

Jaafari criticised Saudi Arabia's decision not to allow another 7,000 Iraqi pilgrims into the kingdom on January 2 after Iraq's quota of 27,500 had been exceeded.

Saudi Arabia restored diplomatic ties with Iraq that were severed when Saddam Hussein invaded neighbouring Kuwait in 1990.

But relations between the two countries have remained tense with Saudi Arabia voicing concern over the influence of Iran on the Shia-dominated Iraqi government.

http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20060111-011642-5696r

Bman

01-19-2006, 08:33 AM

Agence France Presse -- English

January 13, 2006 Friday 6:29 PM GMT

Sadr hostile to US forces, wants them out of Iraq

BAGHDAD, Jan 13 2006

Radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr emphasised his hostility towards the US-led forces in Iraq and said he was ready to help make them leave peacefully, in a rare interview broadcast on Friday.

Sadr called on the Iraqi government to "get rid of the occupation" when he spoke to the Al-Arabiya television channel in Saudi Arabia, where the young cleric had been taking part in the annual hajj pilgrimage for the first time.

The firebrand leader said he was willing to help rid the country of foreign forces by taking part in "protests, strikes and peaceful marches."

He also accused the US military of creating the presumed leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is blamed by US and Iraqi officials for some of the worst attacks in the country.

"As long as the occupation remains in Iraq, Zarqawi will continue to harm the security and stability" of the country, Sadr said.

As for political wrangling taking place following the December 15 general election, Sadr insisted he was above politics.

At the same time, he indicated he would help bring together the different Iraqi political groups to create the next government, but warned this would be impossible to do under the occupation.

Sadr acknowledged that his followers are considered as part of the resistance. "We had been a peaceful resistance and are now becoming a political resistance."

Sadr's men clashed with US forces in 2004 and scorned elections in Iraq last January for a transitional government. But they took part in the most recent poll for a permanent parliament -- the first since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Sadr himself did not endorse any candidate or list for the parliamentary election, but his followers brokered a deal with the two powerful Shiite parties dominating politics and put some of his supporters on their list.

The cleric, who only speaks Arabic, has rarely travelled abroad. His only known trip outside Iraq was to neighbouring Iran to take part in a June 2003 commemoration of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's death.

Bman

01-19-2006, 08:35 AM

here's the text of the rare Sadr interview

BBC Monitoring Middle East - Political
Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring

January 14, 2006 Saturday

Shi'i leader says no security or unity in Iraq until "occupier" ousted

The following is text of recorded interview with Muqtada al-Sadr, in Saudi Arabia, date not given, broadcast in Dubai-based news channel Al-Arabiya TV's talk show "Special encounter" on 13 January

[Presenter Khalid Al-Matrafi] Dear viewers, welcome to Special Encounter in which we host Mr Muqtada Al-Sadr, leader of the Al-Sadr trend. Welcome, sir.

[Muqtada Al-Sadr] Thank you very much.

[Al-Matrafi] Does your visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have anything to do with the current developments in Iraq where a large number of Iraqi political entities rejected the election results? To be more specific, did you ask the Saudi authorities to intervene with the Sunni Arabs?

Goodneighbourly relations with Saudi

[Al-Sadr] In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Actually, the desire of every Muslim is to fulfil his duty of pilgrimage before God the Almighty, which God ordained for those who are able do it. The first and foremost reason I am here is to fulfil this great duty and secondly to visit the holy mosque of God's messenger, God's peace and prayers be upon him and his followers. I also came to strengthen private and public relations with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I was received with warmth and generosity for which I am very grateful. May God reward them as he rewards those who do good unto others. People have a duty to check on their neighbours, and in this case, our neighbour is Saudi Arabia. I found that the highest as well as the lowest level Saudi officials are constantly asking about the small and big things in Iraq. May God reward them well. However, you and others will find that I do not interfere in government affairs. My visit here has nothing to do with the government formation and with the political and election disputes going on. I prefer to remain away from these things. But strengthening unity between the Saudi and Iraqi people is something I strive for. What upset us a great deal was what happened a few days ago, that is the issue of the pilgrimage and Iraqi pilgrims. I hope that media people will not escalate these issues. I am prepared to offer any assistance to resolve this dispute, so to speak, should the Iraqi and Saudi sides wish me to do so since I am present in this holy land and I have found that the Saudis are generous and have been responsive to some of my requests. I am prepared to restore relations [between Iraq and Saudi Arabia] because they ought to be good. This applies to relations with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and with other neighbouring countries. The main problem with the destructive one [not further identified], may God curse him, is that he is not on good terms with his neighbours. Fine. Should we then become unfriendly towards our neighbours as well? This is not right.

No contact with "occupation"

[Al-Matrafi] Mr Muqtada, how do you assess the participation of the Al-Sadr trend in the political process? Will Al-Sadr followers deal with the occupation authority represented by US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and the commander of the US forces in Iraq?

[Al-Sadr] If I personally were asked this question as one of the Al-Sadr trend, as you call it, I would refuse to deal with them. If it was not forbidden from a religious point of view, any meeting with any occupation authority is forbidden from a logical point of view. Indeed, this was asked of me and I declined. I will not meet any American as long as the Americans are occupiers. If they get out of Iraq and if we see that our interests lie in such a meeting, then we will meet with them. If we do not see our interests in doing do, then we will not. From another perspective, any trend or party or political entity has the right to participate in the elections, but the condition for this is that these elections should be the beginning of departure of the occupiers. If, however, the elections turn out to be the beginning of cooperation with the occupiers, then they must be forbidden religiously and rationally.

Security and unity difficult to achieve because of "fanatics"

[Al-Matrafi] Mr Muqtada, how do you see the negotiations on forming the next government which began in Kurdistan and will continue in Baghdad?

[Al-Sadr] I wish for Iraq a government that is capable of bringing people back together, uniting Muslims in Iraq, and bringing security and safety to Iraq. Perhaps this can only be achieved through a diversified and national government that incorporates all parties. However, personally, I find this difficult to achieve especially with the presence of fanatics - not to say takfiris [those who deem other Muslims infidels] - from both sides. Fanaticism leads only to separation, not unity.

[Al-Matrafi] Do you not see that the Kurds are holding the cards of the political process in their hands in Iraq right now?

[Al-Sadr] If they do, it does not do any harm. I do not have any prejudice against Kurds, Shi'is or Sunnis. As long as the person is an Iraqi and wants to serve Iraq's interests, then he is welcome and I would join hands with him if he does not place his personal or his party interests above Iraqi interests.

[Al-Matrafi] A few days ago, the US authorities released the director of the bureau of Martyr Al-Sadr in Al-Hindiah district after keeping him in detention for over a year. How many people from the Al-Sadr trend are under arrest by the Americans forces?

[Al-Sadr] They are countless and our hope is only unto God. I did not count them, but they are so many. If you mean the students in Al-Hawzah [seminary], then that is something else. But there are more than just those and God willing, we will not leave them there and will strive to get them out no matter what.

Calling for moderate Islam

[Al-Matrafi] In Basra, where you enjoy a strong influence, people are complaining of certain practices that are being imposed on them under the pretext of implementing the shari'ah. What are the important measures which you will take to stop people's freedoms from being violated?

[Al-Sadr] If you mean this issue with the Faculty of Engineering at the university, this is an old issue and this meeting is a bit too late to discuss that. But each side has its extremists and people who are open minded. I do hope that people would not see one party as all extremists and the other as all open minded. There are both in every trend, every region, every country and every spot in the world. There are always the extremists, the open-minded people and those who are moderate. As the poet says, the best thing is being in the middle and taking the extreme is going too far [quoting ancient Arabic poetry]. Therefore, we are calling for moderation while preserving the righteous, complete and noble principles of Islam. We are not calling for compromising Islam or using Islam to strike a deal or as a weapon to antagonize the rest of the world. Islam wants to win the world over, not to drive the world away.

Calls for ousting "occupation"

[Al-Matrafi] How do you see the past performance of the United Iraqi Alliance, and what are the ministerial portfolios that you are demanding?

[Al-Sadr] Do you mean the new United Iraqi Alliance from the recent elections or the one from the previous elections?

[Al-Matrafi] No I mean before the -

[Al-Sadr, interrupting] You mean from last year. Well, the presence of the occupier hinders several matters. I call on the Iraqi government to raise its voice and I am ready to help it by asking the masses to stage popular demonstrations and protests, go on strike or do anything else it needs to do to oust the occupier and make it an independent and stable authority, away from the occupier and the occupier's pressures, so to speak. No matter how hard the Iraqi government tries to achieve stability, it will fail to do so as long as the occupier exists. The occupier's tool and America's tool - Al-Zarqawi and others - will once again shake stability in Iraq. The government has the right to be given a good chance in spite of the presence of the occupier. However, if it ousts the occupiers, things will be much easier, even though it may be said that there will be a civil war. A civil was is something that the people and the government should deal with. It is not the place of the occupation and foreign parties, whether they too are occupiers or not, to interfere in domestic affairs of any country.

"I do not interfere in government work"

[Al-Matrafi] What bout the portfolios that you are demanding?

[Al-Sadr] I told you that I do not interfere in the work of the government so why should I ask for a portfolio?

[Al-Matrafi] But what about the Al-Sadr trend, for instance, what are the -

[Al-Sadr, interrupting] Ask the trend. I am not the spokesman for the trend.

[Al-Matrafi] From your point of view, what is the political future of [Iraqi Deputy prime Minister] Dr Ahmad Chalabi?

[Al-Sadr] I do not interfere in such matters. You should ask him personally. I do not interfere in the affairs of parties and trends that wish to be independent. Ask him. My relationship with him is [word indistinct]. I do hope that he will place Iraqi interests above his personal interests.

[Al-Matrafi] He failed to get a seat in the elections. How do you see this failure?

[Al-Sadr] Politics is like business: you win some and you lose some. One day things go your way, and another day they do not.

[Al-Matrafi] We will have a short break and then we will come back. [commercial break] Welcome back. We have with us Mr Muqtada Al-Sadr. We welcome you again.

[Al-Sadr] Thank you.

[Al-Matrafi] We were talking about Ahmad Chalabi. Chalabi played a role in easing the pressure placed on you and resolving the Al-Najaf crisis. Will you pay back the favour by asking your allies in the Alliance to appoint him to a key position?

[Al-Sadr] He intervened in the so-called first intifadah, and may God reward him for what he did because in this particular instance he did all he could. However, I do not believe that he would ask for something in return because doing a favour means that you do not ask for anything in return. Otherwise, if one has to give something in return it would not be a favour any more and the score is even. If I can offer him anything that would be of benefit to him in this life or in the next, I am prepared to do so. However, if it has to do with matters that I keep away from, such as government and political issues, then I would apologize for not being able to do anything.

Western "aggression" against Islamic world

[Al-Matrafi] What about Hezbollah in Lebanon? Your earlier statements in which you said that you are the right hand of Hezbollah and Hamas have triggered a debate and may have alerted the US forces to what the Al-Sadr trend may do. How do you comment?

[Al-Sadr] As far as I am concerned, I am at the service of any trend or party that abides by the principles of Islam and righteousness and rejects injustice and people who practice injustice, be they Hezbollah or any other party. Being the striking arm of Hezbollah in Iraq does not have a political connotation. It is an indication of the unity of Muslims, the unity of our sect and the unity of all Arabs if possible and the hope that we would be a strong hand against the terrorists in Israel, the US occupation, or any other occupying country. It is not just Iraq, but the entire Islamic world that is coming under a Western aggression, which we believe is extremely strong and requires unity and cooperation amongst ourselves while putting aside our differences. We may find simple matters, like the dispute between Syria and Lebanon, the two sisterly and neighbouring country, rising to the surface for the whole world to see. Unfortunately, foreign parties interfered. I wish I could intervene in this problem and try to resolve it. Hopefully, if there is a chance, were there enough time and enough days in my life, I would be allowed to meet the Syrian and Lebanese sides to try as much as possible to resolve the crisis. We saw that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia intervened, and so did Egypt, but nothing happened because the US pressure does not come to an end except when the country - no matter which country - falls. But we pray to God that Muslims and Arabs will remain proud and that God may spare them all evil.

Al-Sadr trend and "political resistance"

[Al-Matrafi] In the past you were accused of not having tactical skills, and saying that you are a project of resistance but at the same time you enter the political process and take part in it. Where do you place Al-Sadr trend?

[Al-Sadr] This question should be addressed to someone who is outside the trend, not someone who is part of it. But in any case, any party or trend has the right to get involved in all matters it is capable of contributing to, whether it chooses to do so at one time or at different times. Perhaps some would say that Al-Sadr trend pursued a peaceful resistance, then a military resistance, and then it chose political resistance. I do not think there is a problem with this. Every point in time has it is own circumstances and we can resort to any sort of resistance that is necessary.

[Al-Matrafi] Mr Muqtada, how do you view general situation in Iraq? Where do you see Iraq heading in the future?

[Al-Sadr] Iraq is heading downhill towards degeneration, adopting Western culture, doing away with Islam and even extracting religion altogether from people's hearts, May God protect us from this, although my father, may God sanctify his soul, used to say that even if the United States was able to turn the world into a small village, it cannot control the hearts of the faithful. We pray that we, the believers, will remain free before our God and before our enemy so that we can reject all that is unrighteous and cling tight to all that is righteous.

Foreign "intervention" in Iraq

[Al-Matrafi] What is your plan to bring the viewpoints in Iraq closer?

[Al-Sadr] I always strive to bring people together. But as I told you, with the presence of the occupiers, it is difficult. Every time you manage to bring two heads together, so to speak, the occupier will immediately shake the union with his sly policies and take things back to where they where. Then people call on Muqtada Al-Sadr to resolve the problem. Of course, it is not just Muqtada Al-Sadr. He [referring to himself] is just one example of the good-doers that call for reconciliation and unity. God willing, if the occupiers leave, everything will become easier.

[Al-Matrafi] Do you think there is other foreign intervention, other than the occupation?

[Al-Sadr] There is negative intervention. There is no favourable intervention. I have yet to find someone who is intervening to serve Iraq's interests.

[Al-Matrafi] Explain to us what the negative interventions are.

[Al-Sadr] Negative interventions are relative, but not intervening at all in itself is negative. We hope from Islamic and friendly countries in general to intervene to get the occupiers out. But those who seek to keep the occupier are committing a crime against the Iraqi people and humanity in general.

[Al-Matrafi] Al-Sadr trend is accused of not handing over its weapons and of harbouring former Ba'thists in its ranks. What is your opinion?

[Al-Sadr] Fine. Let you and I go and see if we can find a Ba'thist and then you can take him anywhere you want. I do not give refuge to the killers of my father and my forefathers. This is not possible. If you find any Ba'thist, prove to me that he is a Ba'thist and then take him away. We can do this tomorrow if you want.

[Al-Matrafi] Is it possible to take the Ba'th out of Iraq completely in your opinion?

[Al-Sadr] As an ideology, this may be a bit difficult. But as individuals it is possible. But the ideology may be more difficult because cancelling the Ba'thist ideology is a process and a process needs a long period of time.

[Al-Matrafi] With this, dear viewers, we come to the end of our interview with Mr Muqtada Al-Sadr, leader of the Al-Sadr trend. All the best.

Source: Al-Arabiya TV, Dubai, in Arabic 1610 gmt 13 Jan 06

Bman

02-16-2006, 03:35 PM

Muqtada will someday be President of Iraq. You heard it here first

and 15 years from now when Iraq has completed its transformation into a religious theocracy much like Iran, people will scratch their heads at why Bush spent $300 billion and 2000 (maybe it'll be more, who knows) lives to put this guy in power..

Looks like the New York Times is finally getting around to what I was reporting in May of 2005.. Better late then never

The New York Times

February 16, 2006 Thursday

Radical Cleric Rising as a Kingmaker in Iraqi Politics

By ROBERT F. WORTH and SABRINA TAVERNISE; Sahar Nageeb and Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi contributed reporting for this article.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 15

Late Saturday night, on the eve of a crucial vote to choose Iraq's next prime minister, a senior Iraqi politician's cellphone rang. A supporter of the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr was on the line with a threat.

''He said that there's going to be a civil war among the Shia'' if Mr. Sadr's preferred candidate was not confirmed, the politician said.

Less than 12 hours later, and after many similar calls to top Shiite leaders, Mr. Sadr got his wish. The widely favored candidate lost by one vote, and Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the interim prime minister, was anointed as Iraq's next leader.

''Everyone was stunned; it was a coup d'etat,'' said the politician, a senior member of the main Shiite political coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance.

It was a crowning moment for Mr. Sadr, whose sudden rise to political power poses a stark new set of challenges for Iraq's fledgling democracy. The man who led the Mahdi Army militia's two deadly uprisings against American troops in 2004 now controls 32 seats in Iraq's Parliament, enough to be a kingmaker. He has an Islamist vision of Iraq's future, and is implacably hostile to the Iraqis closest to the United States -- the mostly secular Kurds, and Ayad Allawi, the former prime minister.

Mr. Sadr's militia fighters have been quieter since the uprisings, but they are suspected in a range of continuing assassinations and other abuses that American officials have pledged to stop. Mr. Sadr himself was accused by the American of arranging a killing in 2004, though the arrest warrant was quietly dropped.

''It will be harder to take on the Mahdi Army with Jaafari as prime minister,'' said a Western official in Baghdad who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be seen as interfering in Iraqi politics. ''Jaafari could not have been elected without Sadr's support.''

In one sense, his participation represents the realization of a central American goal: to bring populist, violent figures -- whether Sunni or Shiite -- off the battlefield and into democratic politics.

Mr. Sadr's new influence and his populist roots may even help achieve the American goal of a broad-based government that includes all of Iraq's sects and ethnic groups.

American officials have worked especially hard to include the Sunni Arabs, who dominate the insurgency, in the government. And the Sunnis are much closer to Mr. Sadr on some key matters of policy than they are to his Shiite rivals.

Like the Sunnis, Mr. Sadr has said he opposes the creation of semiautonomous regions in Iraq, at least for the moment. He shares the Sunnis' hostility to the American presence, and even sent some of his followers to fight alongside Sunni Arab insurgents in Falluja in 2004.

''We have good relations with Sadr,'' said Alaa Makki, a leader of the Iraqi Accordance Front, the Sunni group with 44 seats in Parliament. ''We are close to him on some points.''

That sense of shared purpose may be more important than the hatred many Sunni leaders may feel toward Mr. Jaafari, whose government is widely accused of running death squads in Sunni areas.

It is true that some Sunni Arab leaders favored Mr. Jaafari's rival, Adel Abdul Mahdi, a more secular and pragmatist figure, for prime minister. But others said Mr. Jaafari was no worse than Mr. Mahdi, whose party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or Sciri, has strong backing in Iran and is also suspected of killing Sunnis.

Even on the issue of Iranian influence, Mr. Sadr's position is no worse from an American point of view -- and may even be better -- than that of his Shiite rivals who have been running the government for the last year. Although Mr. Sadr recently traveled to Tehran and cast himself as a defender of Iran, part of his popular appeal comes from his stance as a homegrown nationalist.

''Sadrists often define themselves as anti-Iranian and accuse Sciri of being Iranian stooges,'' said Rory Stewart, a former Coalition Provisional Authority official in Amara, a poor southern city where the Mahdi Army holds immense sway. ''It's the main reason why people like them.''

Mr. Sadr's new political power burst into view last weekend, as the United Iraqi Alliance coalition, which won the largest share of votes in the December election, was trying to decide whom it would name as the next prime minister. In the past, the coalition has mostly worked in a top-down fashion, and this time most party leaders agreed that Mr. Mahdi, who was not tarnished by the mistakes of Mr. Jaafari's government, would be the winner.

But Mr. Sadr made clear to his 32 followers in Parliament that he favored Mr. Jaafari. He told them to put out the word that they would pull out of the alliance, throwing Iraqi politics into chaos, if they did not get what they wanted. The tactic worked, pushing some independent Shiites to vote for Mr. Jaafari out of fear that the alternative would be chaos.

Mr. Sadr had decided to back Mr. Jaafari after his followers met with the prime minister and presented him with a 14-point political program, said Bahaa al-Aaraji, a member of Parliament and spokesman for Mr. Sadr's movement.

''We saw that Jaafari was closer to implementing this program,'' Mr. Aaraji said, than Mr. Mahdi was.

The 14 demands, he said, include a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq; a postponement of any decision about creating autonomous federal regions; more action on releasing innocent detainees from Iraqi and American prisons; and a tough stand against Kurdish demands to repatriate Kurds to Kirkuk, an oil-producing city in the north.

Some of those demands have broad support among Iraqi leaders. But the Sadrists' hostility to Kurdish claims in Kirkuk could lead to a damaging political showdown.

Gaining control of Kirkuk is for a primary goal for the Kurds, and last year they repeatedly accused Mr. Jaafari of stonewalling on the issue. With Mr. Sadr's followers urging him to resist Kurdish pressure, Mr. Jaafari could face a Kurdish rebellion.

There have already been signs of tension with the Kurds and with Mr. Allawi's secular coalition. On Sunday, Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, warned that the Kurdish alliance, with 53 seats, would not bow to demands that Mr. Allawi's group be barred from the new government. Mr. Talabani did not say it, but he was referring to demands made by Mr. Sadr, who has never forgotten Mr. Allawi's role in putting down the Mahdi Army rebellions in 2004.

''There is not enough room in Iraq for Sadrists and Allawi,'' Mr. Aaraji said. ''He killed many Sadr followers and has a personal position against Moktada. We cannot sit with him.''

By far the most troubling aspect of Mr. Sadr's political power is the persistence of his militia. It is difficult to know how much control Mr. Sadr has over the Mahdi Army. Membership is loose and informal, and there appear to be rogue elements working outside of anyone's control; street criminals sometimes operate under a Mahdi Army disguise.

But there is no doubt that the Mahdi Army carries out widespread abuses, including killings. They rigidly apply Islamic rules in areas they control, including Sadr City, the Shiite slum in northeastern Baghdad. They have hunted down and killed hundreds of Iraqis with ties to Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.

''They operate Shariah courts in Sadr City,'' the Western official said. ''It's almost a state within a state, and it's a serious problem.''

The Mahdi Army has also worked clandestinely with police commandos in Iraq's Interior Ministry, supplying them with names of people they want arrested or even executed, said an Interior Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern for his safety.

The Mahdi Army, together with Sciri's militia, also control much of southern Iraq, picking fights with the British Army over arrests of their members and even merging with the official police.

''No one can challenge them,'' said Abd Kareem al-Muhamadawi, a tribal sheik from Amara. ''They can do anything, and no one asks why.''

Secular Iraqis express alarm at their growing power. At the Baab al Muatham campus of Baghdad University, groups of men patrol common areas and ask to see identification when they spot behavior they deem improper, like couples' sitting alone, said Anmar Khalaf, a student. In one incident, Sadr supporters beat up a professor of the media department for his ties to the Baath Party, students said.

''When they see a boy sitting with a girl, they feel something inside of themselves,'' Mr. Khalaf said last month, after guards warned him against speaking with a foreign reporter. ''The university is unbearable because of them.''

Bman

03-22-2006, 11:38 PM

Statesman by decree
Al-Sadr's strength is a mix of piety, power and persuasion

BY MOHAMAD BAZZI
Newsday Middle East Correspondent

March 23, 2006

DAMASCUS, Syria -- As he walked into one of Shia Islam's holiest shrines, the cleric was greeted by hundreds of believers waving his picture and pumping their fists in the air. The surging crowd chanted, "With our blood, with our souls, we will sacrifice for you, Muqtada."

Such a reception is typical for Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq, where he commands a wide following. But this was the capital of a neighboring country, Syria, a secular dictatorship where visiting religious leaders usually do not rate a hero's welcome.

"I pray that all Muslims will unite against Western injustice and tyranny," al-Sadr told the crowd during his Feb. 10 visit to the Sayida Zeinab shrine in Damascus. It was a not-so-subtle reference to the continued U.S. military presence in Iraq and Washington's repeated threats against Syria. "We must free ourselves from foreign domination," he added.

Once a renegade Shia cleric with a ragtag militia fighting U.S. forces, al-Sadr has transformed himself into a statesman. He controls a key bloc in the new Iraqi parliament, and he's become a kingmaker in the selection of the next Iraqi prime minister. In this new role, al-Sadr, 33, has been touring the Middle East, receiving red-carpet treatment worthy of a head of state. Over the past two months, he visited Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iran -- and he had a private audience with each country's leader.

For the United States, al-Sadr may pose a greater threat as a politician than he did as a militia leader. Three years after the U.S. invasion, he could seriously disrupt plans to cultivate a pro-American government in Baghdad.

For Syria, which has been under intense pressure from the Bush administration for meddling in Iraq and Lebanon, the cleric's visit afforded President Bashar Assad an opportunity to showcase an anti-American ally. Assad hosted al-Sadr at the main presidential palace, an honor usually bestowed on a visiting head of state.

More broadly, al-Sadr's weeklong visit highlighted Syria's efforts to join forces with Iran and militant factions in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories to challenge Washington. It is an alliance of countries and groups that have been in the cross hairs of U.S. policy since before the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

"The Syrian regime is trying to form a united front with Iran and Islamist groups in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine," said Marwan Kabalan, a political science professor at Damascus University and a former government consultant. "Al-Sadr is a major part of that effort."

The cleric met with Assad twice, as well as with Syria's vice president, various ministers and most of the country's top religious leaders. He toured the Syrian-Iraqi border, visited shrines and received dozens of visitors at the presidential palace. Al-Sadr's activities were covered glowingly by the state-run Syrian media, which introduced him as "his eminence," a title normally reserved for more senior clerics.

Sadr escalates war of words

Throughout his time in Damascus, al-Sadr -- who had never traveled outside Iraq before the U.S. invasion -- ratcheted up his anti-American rhetoric. He promised to send his several-thousand strong militia, the Mahdi Army, to the aid of Syria and Iran if either country is attacked by the United States. He also hinted that any American action in Syria or Iran could have consequences for U.S. troops in Iraq.

"I will be one of the defenders of Syria and Iran, and all Islamic states," the cleric said on Feb. 6 after meeting with Assad. A few days later, he told Syrian TV: "America is targeting the Muslim and Arab states in the Middle East and beyond. It wants to control the world."

Al-Sadr has shown that he can cause serious political and military problems for the United States in Iraq. His militia led two uprisings in 2004 against U.S. forces in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City and in the Shia holy city of Najaf. After U.S. troops killed several thousand of his supporters and crippled his Mahdi Army, the most revered Shia cleric in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, brokered a cease-fire. Under the agreement, al-Sadr's militia was supposed to disarm.

But the cleric's followers have infiltrated Iraqi security forces and regrouped as local civil defense units across Shia-dominated southern Iraq. In the cities where al-Sadr's fighters hold sway, they enforce a strict interpretation of Islamic law. They have bombed liquor stores and movie theaters, and they harass women who do not wear full veils. They also are suspected of running death squads that assassinate Sunnis and former members of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime.

During his visit to Syria, al-Sadr met with the exiled leaders of eight Palestinian militant groups, which all operate out of Damascus and reject any peace negotiations with Israel. He was particularly effusive in his praise of Hamas, the Islamic group that won a sweeping victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections in January.

"I hope this is the beginning of an Islamic awakening and that it will lead to Islam's triumph in other countries," al-Sadr said of the Hamas win.

The Syrian regime has allowed Hamas political leaders to live in Damascus for years, and the group's election victory bolstered Assad's government in its confrontation with the United States. Syria is likely to use Hamas and al-Sadr to influence events in the Palestinian territories and Iraq.

"Syria can't be important unless it plays its regional cards. This country is not wealthy and it doesn't have enough oil to be influential," Kabalan said. "We are playing the role of a bad student at school. If you don't make trouble, no one will pay attention to you."

Since Hussein's ouster, the Bush administration has accused Syria of sheltering Iraqi Baathist leaders and turning a blind eye to Islamic militants slipping into Iraq to fight U.S. forces. In 2004, President George W. Bush imposed economic sanctions on Syria and tried to isolate it.

The state-run Syrian media trumpeted al-Sadr's tour of the Syrian-Iraqi border, where he declared that Assad's regime was not helping militants reach Iraq. "The accusation that Syria is allowing infiltrators lacks any proof," he said.

A regional "troublemaker"

Syria has long experience playing a regional spoiler, dating to the 1970s when Assad's father, Hafez, took power in a military coup. "This has been Syria's game for 30 years: to be a troublemaker in the region," said a Syrian opposition leader who asked not to be identified. "But Hafez Assad played the game much better than his son."

Aside from its role in Iraq, Syria is also under scrutiny for its meddling in neighboring Lebanon, where a United Nations investigation has implicated top Syrian officials in last year's assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri. After Hariri's killing, Syria was forced to withdraw thousands of troops that it had kept in Lebanon for 29 years.

On the defensive since 2003, Syria is fighting back by promoting a united front against U.S. policies. And it is trying to exploit anti-U.S. sentiments as relations between the West and the Muslim world are particularly strained by Hamas' election victory, a showdown with Iran over its nuclear research program, and Danish cartoons lampooning the prophet Muhammad.

"Syria, Iran and their allies in Iraq are feeding off the uneasiness toward U.S. policies in the region," said Ayman Abdel-Nour, a Syrian political analyst.

One of the most useful symbols in this struggle is al-Sadr, who has cultivated a reputation as an Arab nationalist and a fierce opponent of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. "When you want to confront a superpower like America, you need symbols," said Abdel-Nour. "When there aren't any symbols, you have to create them."

Today, al-Sadr's picture is showing up on the dashboards of Damascene taxis. His scowling visage sometimes can be found next to that of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the Hamas founder who was assassinated by Israel in 2004, and that of Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Lebanese Shia guerrilla group Hezbollah.

"Muqtada al-Sadr was not afraid to stand up to the Americans in Iraq," said Mohammed Nadal, 54, a driver who recently put a photo of al-Sadr in his taxi. "He is a true Muslim and Arab leader. He defended his people against American aggression."

Sadr as buffer against U.S.

Some Syrians say Assad's regime is using al-Sadr as a potential buffer against U.S. pressure on Damascus by dangling the notion that the cleric's supporters would intensify political and military problems for the United States in Iraq. "If the regime has to move away from diplomacy -- and take the confrontation to another stage -- it will count on al-Sadr to help," said the opposition leader.

A senior al-Sadr aide in Baghdad hinted that the cleric would do just that. "There will be repercussions for U.S. actions in the region," said Sheik Abul-Zahra Sawaidi. "If America attacks Iran or Syria, their Muslim brothers cannot sit idly by. There will be a reaction in Iraq."

Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wosadr0323,0,7580776,print.story?coll=ny-leadworldnews-headlines

Bman

03-22-2006, 11:41 PM

The question I have is this:

We've spent $300 billion and 2300 lives to put this guy in power.. .How much and how many will we spend to get him out of power?

Oh, the folly of our government.. we never fucking learn.

zapcomix

03-22-2006, 11:45 PM

Bman

03-22-2006, 11:54 PM

If the country collected all of the back taxes owed, it would cover the $300 billion.

W's rich handlers would never allow that to happen.

You know it, and I know it.

Bman

04-04-2006, 02:25 PM

The White House Bulletin

April 3, 2006 Monday

IN THIS WEEK'S WEEKLIES

Sadr Militia Has Grown

Newsweek (4/10, Nordland) that radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's "militia is back, and bigger than ever: He is now estimated to have 15,000 armed followers, three times as many as when he fought U.S. forces in 2004. He still espouses an Iranian style of theocratic government, with Sharia courts and Islamic law." The US military "no longer talks about killing or capturing Sadr; in fact, they're careful to not even point a finger of blame at him. Why not? In part because Iraq has become an unstable democracy, and Sadr has massive support where it counts -- in the streets." Sadr "has joined the political process, with stunning results. The current prime minister, Ibrahim Jaafari, effectively owes his job to the renegade cleric."

Jaafari Reportedly Promised Sadr He Would Demand Timetable For US Withdrawal.

Newsweek (4/10) interviews Fatah al-Sheikh, a "confidant of Moqtada al-Sadr and editor of the cleric's personal newspaper, Ishraqat al-Sadr." Asked about Sadr's deal with Jaafari, al-Sheikh said, "Jaafari promised Moqtada that should he become prime minister with Moqtada's support, he would...demand a timetable for the departure of Coalition troops from Iraq, the return of sovereignty to Iraq, the provision of services to the people and about nine other items. Dr. Jaafari agreed and submitted himself as an obedient soldier of Sayyid Moqtada." On a related topic, asked if it is true that Sadr has support in Sunni circles, al Sheikh said, "Our newspaper has interviewed Sunni leaders who say Sayyid Moqtada is welcome in Sunni cities -- Ramadi, Salahuddin, Fallujah. As you well know, there are wise people in both sects."

orrery

04-04-2006, 02:30 PM

I'd personally like to know why al-Sadr hasn't been killed yet.

Rightwingnut

04-04-2006, 03:19 PM

Letting that little fucker live was our FIRST mistake post invasion.

Bman

04-05-2006, 10:53 AM

Copyright 2006 Newsweek
All Rights Reserved
Newsweek

April 10, 2006
U.S. Edition

Sadr Strikes;

Deadly Vision: U.S. forces once had the renegade cleric in their cross hairs. Now he's too strong--and too popular--to confront.

By Rod Nordland; With Scott Johnson and Mohammed Hayder Sadeq in Baghdad and Ayad Obeidi in Najaf

At one time--it seems like a bloody eternity ago--there was a murder warrant out for the arrest of Moqtada al-Sadr, on the charge of killing an ayatollah in 2003. U.S. Army Gen. Ricardo Sanchez later publicly vowed that coalition troops in Iraq would "kill or capture" Sadr, and not rest until they had destroyed his militia. American diplomats routinely dismissed him as a no-account thug, a minor cleric with a ragtag band of undisciplined followers. He could get a few thousand angry young Shiites into the streets, demanding immediate U.S. withdrawal. But ultimately, that didn't matter. All the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani had to do was lift a little finger, and hundreds of thousands of Shiites would turn out.

Those were the days. The moderate Shia political leadership of the country, with Sistani's support, was all for a long-term U.S. presence. Sadr, pudgy and histrionic but a poor public speaker, was only 32 years old--a cleric of minor standing in a society that reveres its seniors, especially the learned ones. He was a sideshow, and little more. After fighting to a standstill in two engagements with the Americans, Sadr was forced to stand down by Sistani, and his militiamen began obediently turning in their weapons. Sadr had so faded from the scene by early 2005 that moderate Shiites joked he spent his days playing video soccer on his PlayStation.

Today his militia is back, and bigger than ever: He is now estimated to have 15,000 armed followers, three times as many as when he fought U.S. forces in 2004. He still espouses an Iranian style of theocratic government, with Sharia courts and Islamic law. He's so reflexively anti-American that he even blamed the United States for allowing the terrorist bombing of the revered Al Askari mosque in Samarra, which set off a wave of sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites. Much of that violence seemed to be carried out by Sadr's Mahdi Army, which occupied Sunni mosques. As for the old murder warrant: it was never formally dismissed, but no one mentions it anymore. (Spokesmen for the Iraqi court concerned did not reply to queries about what had happened to it.)

The American military no longer talks about killing or capturing Sadr; in fact, they're careful to not even point a finger of blame at him. Why not? In part because Iraq has become an unstable democracy, and Sadr has massive support where it counts--in the streets. He has also learned the art of crafting different messages for different audiences. Even while his black-clad militiamen struck at Sunni targets recently, Sadr took the moral high ground and appealed for calm. "It is one Islam and one Iraq," he said.

Sadr has joined the political process, with stunning results. The current prime minister, Ibrahim Jaafari, effectively owes his job to the renegade cleric. "Despite the fact that Sadr was not himself an elected official, he and his followers were able to play the role of 'kingmaker' within the Shiite coalition," says Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Sadr's group has 30 seats in the new assembly that was elected last December, but the Sadrist party is allied with a larger Shia coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance. With Sadr's blessing, his followers cast the deciding vote making Jaafari the choice of the UIA for prime minister.

That has everyone else alarmed. Sunnis don't want a prime minister beholden to the man they believe is responsible for sectarian hit squads, which are now claiming as many as 70 lives a day in Baghdad. Kurds are wary of Sadr's anti-federalist stance, which could limit Kurdish autonomy in the north. The result has been to stymie formation of a new government three and a half months after elections were held. U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has been urging moderate Shia leaders to join with Kurds and Sunnis to break the deadlock by choosing a compromise candidate. But the situation is stalemated.

All of which makes Jaafari more dependent than ever on Sadr's support--and that comes at a price. Fatah al-Sheikh, a Sadr spokesman and editor of the party newspaper, says Jaafari has promised that if Sadr helps him win re-election as prime minister, Jaafari will demand a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. forces. "Dr. Jaafari submitted himself as an obedient soldier of Sayyid Moqtada," al-Sheikh said in an interview with NEWSWEEK [see box]. "Moqtada in turn showed his respect and support for this man." A spokesman for Jaafari's Dawa Party saw things differently: "They are both adults," said Jawad al-Maliki. "One doesn't guide the other. Their relationship is built on mutual respect."

As it is, Sadr's followers have control of two ministries--health and transportation--and have banned American advisers from entering ministry buildings. The Ministry of Transportation "has no relations nor contracts with any American side," said its spokesman, Ahmed al-Mousawi, who added: "This is due to the orders of our Sadrist minister, Salam al-Maliki, who hates the Americans." When the MOT took charge of Baghdad International Airport, alcohol was banned from the duty-free shop, and Mousawi says the MOT is canceling the contract of the British firm that now runs security there.

To underscore Sadr's entry to the halls of power, he went on a whirlwind tour of the Middle East in February, and was received by the kings of Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Along the way he praised the Syrians, denounced the Iraqi constitution, and told the Iranians he would fight by their side if attacked by America. The performance wasn't warmly received by moderate Shia leaders, who complained he was acting as if he were on an official mission. That was fine by Sadr. "The media covered Sayyid Moqtada's tour thoroughly, and the Americans were worried about it," said al-Sheikh.

Ambassador Khalilzad believes that Sadr must moderate his rhetoric. "Coalition forces are present in Iraq on the basis of an invitation from the government and you are part of it," he said in a statement on Sadr to al-Hayat newspaper in Baghdad. "You cannot be a part of the government while at the same time you issue statements demanding that we leave." The envoy went on to say that "Moqtada al-Sadr should be grateful to us for what the American people did," in part because "Saddam's regime killed his father." It is widely believed that Sadr's father, a grand ayatollah, was assassinated by Saddam in 1999.

Sadr has proven adept at trying to have it both ways. He opened negotiations with Sunni insurgents during the siege of Fallujah, even as Sunni extremists were calling for the extermination of the Shiites. "He's the only one whom the Shia mobs will listen to, and he's on good terms with the Sunnis," says Shia parliamentarian Ali al-Dabbagh. Now, at a time of sectarian crisis--which Sadr's militia is helping to fuel--he is positioning himself as a true nationalist.

Recently, Sadr has reached out to Kurdish leaders, among the biggest critics of his deal with Jaafari. Kurdish legislator Mahmoud Othman said that Sadr had taken the initiative, visiting Kurdish leaders in Baghdad, then inviting them down to see him in Najaf. "They [the Sadrists] have to be reckoned with," said Othman. "Hopefully they'll go the quiet way." There's some evidence of that. For all the tough talk from his ministers, Sadr hasn't closed Baghdad airport to the Americans--who still hold meetings with ministry officials regularly.

But it's just as likely that Sadr will find it more useful to stir up trouble. When a combined Iraqi special forces and American unit attacked a compound in the eastern Baghdad neighborhood of Ur last week, the Americans said they were busting a kidnap ring--killing 16 insurgents and arresting 18 in the process. Sadr's followers immediately cried foul, claiming the Ur complex had been a mosque, and the victims innocent worshippers, even if they were mostly Mahdi Army members. American military spokesmen said they rescued a dental technician, held for ransom, who had been tortured with an electric drill--though the spokesman carefully declined to identify the culprits as Mahdi Army. The next day, Baghdad's Sadrist governor, Hussein al-Tahan, announced he was breaking off relations with the Americans over the "cowardly attack."

Whatever the truth in Ur, the incident provoked widespread criticism of the Americans among Shia leaders--many of them already upset at pressure from the U.S. embassy to compromise with the Sunnis to form a national unity government. The Americans have also been pressing Shia leaders to rein in death squads and militias--like the Mahdi Army--to prevent the current violence from degenerating into full-scale civil war. At Friday prayers last week, Ayatollah Mohammed al-Yacoubi accused Ambassador Khalilzad of siding with the Sunnis and their "terrorist blackmail," and demanded the ambassador's dismissal. Sadr has been making similar demands for months. He's probably just playing politics--knowing that the ambassador isn't going anywhere, but that someday, the whole American enterprise in Iraq will have to come to an end.

Bman

05-04-2006, 02:42 PM

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-sadr3may03,0,396979.story?coll=la-home-world

From the Los Angeles Times

Sadr Loyalists Push for More Cabinet Posts

Demands by lawmakers tied to the radical Shiite cleric are typical of a process that some Iraqis say puts political wants above public needs.

By Borzou Daragahi
Times Staff Writer

May 3, 2006

BAGHDAD — Loyalists of radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr have demanded control of a greater share of Iraq's public-service ministries, in what many worry is a trend toward a government more concerned with satisfying demands for political patronage than serving Iraqis.

Prime Minister-designate Nouri Maliki, a Shiite, has three weeks to form a government acceptable to rival Sunni Muslim Arab and Kurdish blocs.

But already ministries are being divided up during bruising backroom negotiations according to a sectarian and ethnic formula that parallels election results: 14 posts for Shiites, eight for Kurds, seven for Sunnis and three for a secular coalition. Some warn that it could be a recipe for disaster.

Izzat Shahbandar, an Iraqi lawmaker loyal to former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, said that the proposed Cabinet divisions had "established the basis for an ethnic and sectarian system that will lead Iraq to hell."

Sadr's followers, who control as many as 35 of 275 parliament seats, representing working-class Shiites in eastern Baghdad and the country's south, already hold the ministries of health and transportation. But they are eyeing education, youth, commerce, agriculture and electricity as possible additions to their portfolio.

Iraqi and Western officials have criticized the ministries under Sadr's control during the last year as corrupt and ideological. Doctors, nurses and pharmacists say the health system is poorly run and deteriorating. Sadr's loyalists in the Transportation Ministry have removed alcohol from airport duty-free shops and put portraits of ayatollahs on the billboard in front of the Baghdad train station.

The thirtysomething cleric and his fast-growing movement have become a formidable political force. They agreed to forgo claims on the important ministries of interior, defense, finance, oil and foreign affairs and instead focused on building up power and patronage through public-sector jobs and services.

"We prefer to control only those ministries that serve the Iraqi people to build a strong base," said Fadhil Sharih, one of Sadr's deputies. "We will also be directly involved with the Iraqi society, to listen to their needs and serve them."

The formula is similar to the tack taken by Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories.

U.S. officials would like to see technocrats without strong sectarian affiliations in charge of the government, but face strong challenges. For example, several Shiite political parties are laying claim to the Oil Ministry, but Iraqi professionals and Western officials want the Cabinet position to revert to former interim Oil Minister Thamir Ghadhban.

In some cases, politicians offer to resolve disputes over ministries by creating new titles that risk increasing an already bloated public sector and diluting executive power. Faced with competing Kurdish and Sunni Arab claims on the Foreign Ministry, for example, negotiators are toying with the idea of creating a separate ministry that deals specifically with Arab countries.

Security posts remain the biggest stumbling block in forming the government. Sunnis and Shiites have an agreement to divvy up the defense and interior ministries between themselves. But insiders say Allawi, a perennial U.S. favorite for sensitive security posts, might chair a newly created Cabinet-level committee that could override the prime minister on major decisions.

Amid the frenzied haggling over Cabinet posts, rank-and-file legislators were scheduled to meet today to discuss the potentially combustible issue of revising the constitution and to take up some procedural matters.

Pressed to keep pace with deadlines, Iraq's political factions last year failed to resolve fundamental constitutional questions, including Iraq's identity and the extent of autonomy granted to regions.

Iraq's main Sunni Arab political group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, agreed to call on its supporters to vote in October's constitutional referendum on condition that the charter allow for a four-month revision period.

"I think the amendments should be made early so we can move on," said Wael Abdul Latif, a parliamentarian and judge loyal to Allawi. "I believe this will be a lot simpler than drafting the constitution."

Iraq's Sunnis and secular nationalists, many of them former loyalists to Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, cite more than two dozen changes they'd like to see in the charter. Some are semantic, but others call for fundamental shifts, including a stronger central government and removal of language condemning Iraq's 35 years of Baathist rule.

Iraqis worry about renewing the harrowing negotiations that characterized the constitutional debate, which dragged on for months and undermined the power of the interim government.

"We are talking about core issues that form the basis for the constitution," said Jinan Jasim Ubaidi, a Shiite legislator. "I am sure many disagreements and much delay will occur."

*

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Times staff writers Raheem Salman, Zainab Hussein, Caesar Ahmed, Saif Hameed and Shamil Aziz contributed to this report.

Bman

08-22-2006, 12:13 PM

NFM

08-22-2006, 12:14 PM

Reporting? Don't you mean cutting and pasting? ;)

Bman

11-29-2006, 03:32 PM

Newsweek

December 4, 2006
U.S. Edition

Sword of the Shia;

He can deal out death through his black-clad followers and roil the government any time he chooses. Why Moqtada al-Sadr may end up deciding America's fate in Iraq.

This story was written by Jeffrey Bartholet with reporting from Kevin Peraino and Sarah Childress in Baghdad; Michael Hastings in Amman; Dan Ephron, Michael Hirsh and John Barry in Washington; Christopher Dickey in Paris; Melinda Liu in Beijing; Rod Nordland, Stryker McGuire, Mark Hosenball and Rebecca Hall in London; Babak Dehghanpisheh in Beirut; Scott Johnson in Cape Town; Christian Carylin Tokyo, and Malcolm Beith and Karen Fragala Smith in New York

One way to understand Moqtada al-Sadr is to think of him as a young Mafia don. He aims for respectability, and is willing to kill for it. Yet the extent of his power isn't obvious to the untrained eye. He has no standing army or police force, and the Mahdi Army gunmen he employs have no tanks or aircraft. You could mistake him--at your peril--for a common thug or gang leader. And if he or his people were to kill you for your ignorance, he wouldn't claim credit. But the message would be clear to those who understand the brutal language of the Iraqi Street.

American soldiers who patrol Sadr's turf in Baghdad understand. They can spot his men. "They look like they're pulling security," says First Lt. Robert Hartley, a 25-year-old who plays

cat and mouse with the Mahdi Army in the Iraqi capital. The Sadrists use children and young men as lookouts. When GIs get out of their Humvees to patrol on foot, one of the watchers will fly a kite, or release a flock of pigeons. Some of Sadr's people have even infiltrated top ranks of the Iraqi police. Capt. Tom Kapla, 29, says he knows who they are: "They look at you, and you can tell they want to kill you."

Sadr is a unique force in Iraq: a leader from the majority Shiites who has resisted American occupation from the start. He's a populist, a nationalist and an Islamic radical rolled into one. Part of his power is simply that he's powerful. Large numbers of impoverished Shiites view Sadr as their guardian--the one leader who is willing not just to stand up for them but to strike back on their behalf. "People count on the militias," says Lieutenant Hartley, who deals with Sadr's thugs on a regular basis. "It's like the mob--they keep people safe."

The longer Sadr has survived, the greater his prestige has grown. Iraqis and foreigners who meet him are impressed by the transformation. He's more diplomatic and commands more respect. He used to greet visitors at his Najaf office sitting on pillows on the floor. Now he has a couch set. His concerns are high-minded: he speaks of fuel shortages and cabinet politics. In the past, Sadr was shrugged off as a rabble-rouser and a nuisance. Now he is undeniably one of the most popular leaders in the country. He is also its most dangerous, for he has the means to wage political or actual war against any solution that is not precisely to his liking. He is driven by forces America has long misread in Iraq: religious sentiment, economic resentment and enduring sectarian passions.

And he is now a primary target of Sunni insurgents bent on provoking all-out civil war. Last Thursday, Sunni militants carried out their deadliest attack since 2003. Multiple car bombs, accompanied by mortars, killed more than 200 people in Sadr City, a Shiite slum of 2 million people in Baghdad that is dominated by the Mahdi Army. Shiite forces responded immediately by firing mortars at a revered Sunni mosque in Baghdad, and by torching other holy places. Only the presence of U.S. troops--and a wide curfew over the city--prevented far bloodier revenge attacks.

More than anyone, Sadr personifies the dilemma Washington faces: If American troops leave Iraq quickly, militia leaders like Sadr will be unleashed as never before, and full-scale civil war could follow. But the longer the American occupation lasts, the less popular America gets--and the more popular Sadr and his ilk become.

To many, Sadr's brand of Shiite politics--homegrown, populist and ruthless--seems a natural outgrowth of the ruin left in Saddam Hussein's wake, and a powerful part of what Iraq has become. The United Nations calculates that an unprecedented 3,709 Iraqi civilians were killed in October. Death squads connected to the Mahdi Army, as well as to other Shia and Sunni groups, capture and execute civilians in cold blood, sometimes dragging them out of hospitals or government ministries. Corpses turn up on the street with acid burns on their backs, or electric-drill holes in their knees, stomachs and heads. Among ordinary Iraqis, the United States bears much of the blame for the bloodshed--just for being there. As Sadr put it to NEWSWEEK earlier this year, "The occupation is the decision maker ... any attack is [America's] responsibility."

The story of the U.S. confrontation with Moqtada al-Sadr is, in many ways, the story of American folly in Iraq. It's a story of ignorance and poor planning, missteps and confusion. Key policymakers often disagreed about the importance of Sadr and about how to deal with him. The result was half-measures and hesitation. But the story isn't just about past failures. It also contains lessons--and warnings--about the future.

Little More Than 'Mullah Atari' Moqtada al-sadr did not appearon anyone's radar screen ahead of the 2003 invasion. Even among Iraqis, although he came from an important clerical family he was seen as a weak figure. Moqtada's father, Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, had been a leading ayatollah, a rival to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and other top clerics. But gunmen--assumed to be working for Saddam--murdered the elder Sadr along with two of his sons in 1999. Moqtada was 25 at the time.

On the evening after his father's funeral, Moqtada presided over a memorial service at the Safi al-Safa Mosque in Najaf. A storm was raging outside. At about 8 p.m., three men wearing suits and ties swaggered into the mosque. Their jackets bulged where handguns were holstered. They were smirking, recalls Fatah al-Sheikh, a family friend who was present. Everyone in the mosque knew they were Saddam's men. One of the visitors offered Moqtada a package: a brick of bank notes wrapped in crisp white paper. "It was a message from Saddam Hussein," Sheikh recalls. "They wanted to tell Sayyid Moqtada, 'We killed your father.' They wanted to see if Sayyid Moqtada could be bought."

Moqtada declined the money, refused to shake hands and told the men to leave the mosque. A cleric followed the men out, apologized on Moqtada's behalf and accepted the money--knowing that to refuse it would mean a death sentence. Fearing immediate retribution anyway, Moqtada cut short the memorial and canceled two days of official mourning.

Sheikh says that for the next four years, Saddam's secret police followed Sadr wherever he went. One hot summer day, Sheikh recalls seeing Sadr leave the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf. Sheikh walked up and said hello. Sadr squeezed Sheikh's hand tight and opened his eyes wide. "He was trying to give me a signal." Then Sheikh saw why: two men dressed in dishdasha s, standing behind Sadr and near a Toyota with tinted windows, were watching.

Saddam kept a close eye on Sadr because the young man inherited a wide network of mosques, schools and social centers built up by his father. The network was focused on the impoverished masses of Iraqi Shiites--the sort of people other religious and secular leaders didn't have much time for. Even some educated Shiites dismissed Moqtada as a zatut, or ignorant child. Some called him "Mullah Atari," because he apparently enjoyed videogames as a kid. He certainly lacked his father's stature: in his theological studies, Moqtada never reached beyond the level of bahth al-kharij (pregraduation research), according to a study by the International Crisis Group. But it's clear now that most everybody underestimated him.

The Time Bomb Starts to Tick Top american officials may have been misled, as in so many other things, by depending heavily on well-heeled Iraqiexiles for advice. The outsiders, who had lived for many years in London or Washington or Tehran, disagreed vehemently with each other on what an invasion would mean. But some told Americans what they wanted to hear: you will be greeted as liberators, especially by the Shiites and Kurds long oppressed by Saddam.

American officials listened to Ahmad Chalabi, the well-known scion of a secular Shiite banking family. Another prominent exile was Abdul Majid al-Khoei, who was supposed to be a key guide to the Shia religious community. Both had been away from Iraq for many years, and were strangers to the place they had left behind.

Al-Khoei paid with his life. The London-based exile returned to the holy city of Najaf, where he was born and raised, under U.S. military protection. He quickly organized a local council to get electricity and water flowing again, apparently with CIA money. (The CIA declined to comment.) But al-Khoei's father had been Iraq's top ayatollah--and a bitter rival of Sadr's father--during Saddam's rule. Now the sons were competing for power and influence. Sadr castigated al-Khoei as a U.S. agent, and demanded that he turn over the keys to the tomb of Imam Ali, the Prophet Muhammad's son-in-law. A gilded cage surrounding the tomb contains a box for pilgrims' donations, a huge and vital source of income for religious leaders.

As al-Khoei and a colleague visited the shrine on the morning of April 10, 2003, an angry mob attacked them with grenades, guns and swords. "Long live Moqtada al-Sadr!" the mob cried out. Al-Khoei was stabbed repeatedly, then tied up and dragged to the doorstep of Sadr's headquarters in Najaf, where he was still alive. A subsequent investigation by an Iraqi judge found that Sadr himself gave the order to finish him off: "Take him away and kill him in your own special way."

Yet it wasn't clear at the time of the killing what Sadr's personal role was, and "we didn't want one of our first acts in country to be taking out one of the most popular leaders," says a U.S. military officer familiar with Army intelligence on Sadr. The officer, who did not want to be named discussing intelligence matters, says the Army was worried about provoking riots. When Sadr's father was killed in 1999, Saddam violently crushed protests by angry Shia mobs. "We thought that tens of thousands would take to the streets in Nasiriya, Karbala and Baghdad. It always comes back to that--not enough guys on the ground."

One courageous Iraqi judge, Raid Juhi, doggedly investigated the case. He exhumed the bodies of al-Khoei and his colleague, and wrote up a confidential arrest warrant for Sadr in August 2003. "From that moment through April 2004, the issue was whether we were going to enforce the arrest warrant," says Dan Senor, a senior official in the Coalition Provisional Authority at the time.

The CPA, the Pentagon and the military on the ground were in disagree-ment. The Marines in southern Iraq were particularly wary of stirring up trouble. As it was, the United States was preparing to hand off the area around Najaf to a multinational force with troops from Spain and Central America. Still, the Coalition had a secret arrest plan, and momentum toward nabbing Sadr was building. "The pivotal moment was Aug. 19, 2003," says Senor. "We were down to figuring out the mechanisms of ensuring that the operation was seen as Iraqi, executed on an Iraqi arrest warrant. I remember it was late afternoon and we had just received a snowflake from [U.S. Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld ... with nine different questions, rehashing how we were going to do this, to make sure it was not seen as an American operation." (A "snowflake" was a Rumsfeld memo.)

Suddenly word came that insurgents had detonated a massive truck bomb at the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. Senor recalls rushing to the scene with Hume Horan, a top U.S. diplomat and Arabist. Horan leaned over to Senor and said, "We should take down Sadr now, when no one's looking." But there was enough chaos to deal with already. The U.N. bombing was "a huge distraction," says Senor, "and the Sadr operation was forgotten."

Taking On Iraq's New Taliban The u.s. invasion had destroyed an economy already crippled by years of international sanctions. Countless young men were unemployed, invigorated by the atmosphere of violent change but also poor and fearful. They wanted to be part of the new order--whatever it would be. The country was also awash in guns and other weapons, including those looted from Saddam's vast and unsecured arms depots. The Sadrist network was perfectly positioned to capitalize on the situation. Sadr himself wasdetermined to lead a national movement--using a potent mixture of anti-occupation militancy and millennial preaching about the coming of the mysterious 12th imam, who Shiites believe will save mankind. "Moqtada is absolutely hooked on the concept of the reappearance of the Mahdi," says Amatzia Baram, the director of the Ezri Center at Haifa University.

The first sighting of black-clad militiamen identifying themselves as part of Mahdi Army seems to have come in September 2003 in the southern town of Kufah. "I do not care what the Americans have to say about this, and I never did," said Sadr when asked about the new militia by reporters later that month. "Only the Iraqi people can choose who they want to protect their country." The U.S. military, fighting an ever-growing insurgency by the minority Sunnis, who had lost power with Saddam's downfall, didn't want to instigate a two-front war. But that left the United States without a strategy. If American forces weren't going to fight Sadr, it made sense to try to entice him into a political process. But other Iraqi leaders, including prominent Shiites, may have opposed that idea.

In the winter of 2004, a senior adviser to Ambassador Paul Bremer, the American proconsul in Iraq, was traveling in the south, meeting with friendly clerics and community leaders. "I could see how frightened they were of [Sadr] and his Mahdi Army," recalls the aide, Larry Diamond. "I was driven past an area, a kind of compound where his black-clad army was training for the upcoming revolution to seize power and take over. It just dawned on me that these people were going to make this place an authoritarian hell of a new sort, Taliban style, and would murder a lot of our allies in the process."

Diamond went to Bremer and gave him his assessment: the United States urgently needed to act against Sadr. Bremer responded that he was waiting for a new plan from Coalition forces. "I first wanted to go after him when he had probably fewer than 200 followers," Bremer recalled in an interview with NEWSWEEK last week. "I couldn't make it happen ... the Marines were resisting doing anything." But in the meantime, on March 28, 2004, Bremer suspended publication of Sadr's newspaper after it ran an editorial praising the 9/11 attacks on America as a "blessing from God."

The response was swift: mass demonstrations, which led to the first of two Sadr uprisings in 2004. In a final meeting between Diamond and Bremer on April 1, Diamond pressed the point that the United States needed more troops in Iraq. It was around 8 p.m., and Bremer's dinner was sitting on a tray un- eaten. He looked exhausted. "And he just didn't want to hear it," says Diamond. "In retrospect, I think he had gone to the well on this issue of more troops during 2003, had gotten nowhere ... and had just resigned himself to the fact that these troops just weren't going to come. I think the tragedy is that everyone just gave up."

When fighting did break out, American forces hammered the Mahdi Army in Baghdad and Najaf--first in the spring and then again, after a broken ceasefire, in the late summer. Some of the worst fighting came in August, as Sadr's militiamen made their stand around the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf. They turned the area into a no-go zone, sniping at any sign of movement. U.S. forces retaliated by laying waste to large swaths of central Najaf. In the end, Ayatollah Sistani brought his influence to bear on the renegade cleric and encouraged a ceasefire. Attempts to enforce the arrest warrant against Sadr and several aides were dropped, and Sadr's forces disarmed in Najaf or headed out of town. They were badly bloodied, and some militants were shellshocked. Others bragged about how they had fought back tanks with AK-47s, or disabled Humvees with a single grenade. Scores of militiamen were dead, but Sadr's prestige was, if anything, enhanced: he had fought the mighty United States to a stalemate.

Getting Sadr Inside The Tent Sadr needed a new strategy, how- ever. He wasn't strong enough to defeat the occupier head-on, nor could he eliminate his Iraqi rivals. So he took up what he calls "political resistance"--working from within the system. Chalabi played an important role here. Washington's favorite Iraqi had found that he had little popularity in his homeland, so he was seeking alliances. Chalabi also felt, as did many other Iraqis and Americans, that it was better to bring Sadr inside the process than to have him trying to destroy it. "Sadr is respected because of his lineage and because he speaks for the disenfranchised, the scared and the angry," says a Chalabi aide, who did not want to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject. "In that sort of situation, it makes absolute sense to try to get him inside the system."

Sadr made the most of the opening. Politicians in his Sadr bloc won 23 of 275 seats in the January 2005 elections and, after fresh voting nearly a year later, now hold 30 seats. In both cases, because of divisions between other large Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni parties, Sadr was able to play kingmaker. Two prime ministers since 2005--Ibrahim Jaafari and the current Iraqi leader, Nuri al-Maliki--have depended on his swing votes for their majority. But Sadr himself stayed out of government, and kept his distance. That way he could pursue a dual strategy--rebuilding his militia even as he capitalized on his control of key ministries, like Health and Transportation, to provide services to the poor and jobs to his followers.

The Sunni insurgents were pursuing a new strategy, too. In early 2004, U.S. forces had intercepted a worried letter from the Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, to Osama bin Laden. Zarqawi fretted that his fight against American forces was going poorly. But he had a plan: "If we succeed in dragging [the Shiites] into the arena of sectarian war, it will become possible to awaken the inattentive Sunnis as they feel imminent danger," he wrote.

Throughout 2005, Sunni insurgents launched increasingly vicious attacks on Shiite civilians and holy places. Sistani regularly called on his followers to exercise restraint, which they did with remarkable forbearance. But Sadr, who had long positioned himself as an Iraqi nationalist--and who had cooperated with Sunni fighters in the early stages of the insurgency--now publicly called for Sunnis to disavow Zarqawi. New battle lines were being drawn.

The turning point came on Feb. 22, 2006, when assailants bombed the golden-domed Askariya Shrine in Samarra. This was the burial place of the 10th and 11th imams, and one of the holiest sites of the Shia faith. After the Samarra bombing, many Shiites felt compelled to lash back. Caught in a vicious street fight against Sunnis, they decided that they'd rather have a dirty brawler in their corner (like Sadr) than a gray-bearded holy man (like Sistani). "We have courage, large amounts of ammunition, good leaders, and it is a religious duty," says Ali Mijbil, a 26-year-old mechanic who serves in the Mahdi Army. "So why don't we fight them? We've been kept under Sunni rule for more than 14 centuries. It is the proper time to rule ourselves now."

Sadr still insists his main fight is with foreign invaders. He's the one Shia leader who has opposed the U.S. occupation from the beginning, and who has continued to call for a strict timetable for American withdrawal. An overwhelming majority of Iraqis now agree with him. A September poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org found that 63 percent of 501 Iraqi Shiites surveyed supported attacks against Americans. Even in Baghdad, where ethnic tensions are worst, Shiites agree with Sunnis on one thing: the poll found that 80 percent of the capital's Shiites wanted U.S. forces to leave within a year. That number has changed dramatically in a matter of months. A January poll found that most Shiites wanted U.S.-led troops to be reduced only "as the security situation improves."

In Washington, some politicians still talk about "victory," while others aim only to stabilize the country and leave with some semblance of dignity. Many in the U.S. capital are dusting off yesterday's proposals for tomorrow's problems--more training, more troops, disarming the militias, more stability in Baghdad. The GOP presidential front runner for 2008, John McCain, would prefer to increase the number of U.S. troops in Iraq by 20,000, at least temporarily. He has also called for Sadr to be "taken out." But it may be too late.

The movement may now be more important than the man. Sadr "is faced with a common problem," says Toby Dodge of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "He can't control the use of his brand name, the use of his legitimacy." Some elder followers of Sadr's father have broken away, disillusioned with the son. And some young toughs seem to be freelancing where they can. Renegade factions could eventually threaten Sadr's power. If he were to fall, "you'll end up with 30 different movements," says Vali Nasr, a scholar and author who has briefed the Bush administration on Iraq. "There are 30 chieftains who have a tremendous amount of local power. If you remove him, there will be a scramble for who will inherit this movement ... It's a great danger doing that. You may actually make your life much more difficult."

How the Mahdi Army Works For now, sadr and his mahdi army have the initiative. They can stir up trouble without much fear of retribution. A case in point: When kidnappers grabbed an Iraqi-American translator in Baghdad last month, U.S. soldiers sealed off the Sadr City neighborhood where they believed he was being held. But Prime Minister Maliki--who depends on Sadr for political support--quickly ordered the Americans to remove their roadblocks. Maliki has also forced the U.S. military to release men picked up during raids in Sadr City on suspicion of belonging to Shiite death squads.

When the U.S. fails to respond to provocation, it loses credibility. And when it does respond, it can also lose. Last week, before the massive car-bomb attacks, U.S. and Iraqi forces carried out a pinprick raid in Sadr City to get intelligence on the kidnapped military translator, Ahmed Qusai al-Taayie. Like so many other U.S. military strikes in Iraq, however, it came at a price. American forces captured seven militiamen, including one who might have information on al-Taayie. But police said a young boy was among three people killed in the raid. A member of Parliament from Sadr's movement promptly showed up at the morgue, and held the corpse of the boy in his arms as he railed against the American occupation.

U.S. forces have tried hard to win hearts and minds. They've spent $120.9 million on completed construction projects in Sadr City, for instance--building new sewers and power lines--and projects worth an additional $197 million are underway. But the United States doesn't always get credit for the good works. When the Americans doled out cash to construct four health clinics in Sadr City during the past year, Sadr's men quickly removed any hint of U.S. involvement. They also put up signs giving all credit to their boss, according to Lt. Zeroy Lawson, an Army intelligence officer who works in the area.

The Mahdi Army has other sources of cash. It's taken control of gas stations throughout large parts of Baghdad, and dominates the Shia trade in propane-gas canisters, which Iraqis use for cooking. Sometimes the militiamen sell the propane at a premium, earning healthy profits; at other times they sell it at well below market rates, earning gratitude from the poor and unemployed.

A key source of Sadr's income is Muslim tithes--or khom s--collected at mosques. But his militiamen also run extortion and protection rackets--demanding money to keep certain businesses and individuals "safe." One Iraqi in a tough neighborhood, who did not want to reveal his name out of fear, says he pays the local Mahdi Army the equivalent of $13 a month for protection.

Analysts believe that Iran has also provided support to Sadr, but not much. Tehran began supplying Shia insurgents, including the Mahdi Army, with a special type of roadside bomb, using a shaped charge, in May 2005. These are often disguised as rocks and are easy to manufacture locally. But diplomats say they are made to the exact design perfected by Iranian intelligence and supplied to Lebanese Hizbullah in the 1980s.

Yet Tehran's main Shiite clients in Iraq are rivals of Sadr, who is often critical of Persian influence. Sadr worries that Iran may be trying to infiltrate his movement, and he's almost surely right. Fatah al-Sheikh, who is close to Sadr, says the boss sent a private letter to loyal imams around Baghdad in the past two weeks identifying 10 followers he believed were suspect. They had been using the Mahdi Army name, but Sadr believes they're really tools of Iranian intelligence, says Sheikh.

Sadr has tried to distance himself from atrocities, insisting that they're carried out by renegades or impostors. Many Sunnis, to whom Sadr has become a dark symbol of Shiite perfidy, don't buy it. "If he says, 'Kill Alusi,' I will be killed," says Mithal al-Alusi, a moderate Sunni member of Parliament. "If he says, 'Don't kill Alusi,' I will not be killed ... Nobody can go against his orders or wishes." The Association of Muslim Scholars, which is loosely linked with Sunni insurgents, says the Mahdi Army has attacked some 200 Sunni mosques, and killed more than 260 imams and mosque workers.

All the killings will be remembered, and it will be a miracle if they go unanswered. Memories of martyrdom--and the desire for revenge--can last forever. Last Friday marked the anniversary, on the Islamic calendar, of the killing of Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr and his two eldest sons. After the previous day's bombings, Moqtada told government officials that he was out of the country. But that seems to have been a feint--to keep possible enemiesoff balance. In fact, heappeared at the Kufah Mosque, where his father used to lead worshipers in chants of "No, no to America; no, no to Israel; no, no to the Devil!"

As word spread that Moqtada would lead prayers, people crowded into the mosque, most of them clad in black as a sign of mourning. Sadr asked worshipers to pray for his dead relatives, and also for those who had been killed in Sadr City. He again called for the United States to set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. He urged a top Sunni sheik to issue three fatwa s: one against the killing of Shiites, another against joining Al Qaeda and the third to rebuild the shrine in Samarra. He compared his father's followers to those of the Prophet Muhammad. "After the prophet died," he intoned, "some of his followers deviated from his teachings, and the same has happened with followers of my father." The "cursed trio"--Americans, British and Israelis--were trying to divide Iraq. "We Iraqis--Sunnis and Shia--will always be brothers."

No one in Iraq talks about arresting Sadr for the murder of al-Khoei anymore. That seems like ages ago--back when Sadr's armed supporters were estimated in the hundreds, compared with many thousands today. Now diplomats speak of trying to keep Sadr inside the political system, hoping he can tame his followers. He's a militant Islamist and anti-occupation, they say, but he's also a nationalist, and not as close to Iran as some of his rivals. Nobody knows whether Sadr is dissembling when he speaks about Iraqi unity, or preparing for all-out war. What is clear--more today than ever before--is that it's time to stop underestimating him.

Bman

12-04-2006, 10:18 AM

The Irish Times

December 4, 2006 Monday

Al-Sadr now more feared in Iraq than Saddam at peak of his powers

IRAQ: Michael Jansen examines why Iraq's radical Shia cleric has become a potent threat instead of a saviour

As American President George Bush meets Iraqi Shia leader Abdel Aziz Hakim today, Baghdad's kingmaker, Muqtada al-Sadr will be elsewhere, excluded from consultations on the country's future.

The populist Shia cleric, who has the largest following and largest bloc in parliament, might have become Iraq's new strongman if he had reined in his al-Mahdi army militiamen and espoused a programme for the new Iraq which Sunnis, secularists and Christians could accept.

But he cannot even convince their legislators to join his 32-member bloc's boycott of the assembly and government to protest premier Nuri al-Maliki's meeting last week with Bush. Sunnis and secularists are not prepared to join his camp because they consider him a loose cannon whose 20,000-50,000 fighters are endangering the existence of the country.

His black-clad Mahdi army militiamen and Sadrists - recruited into the security forces - have been kidnapping, torturing and killing secularists and Sunnis since February when al-Qaeda blew up a Shia shrine in Samarra.

Instead of curbing his militiamen, Sadr unleashed them to demonstrate to Shias that the Sadrists were their protectors. Although he secured the support of the Shia poor, his followers terrorised everyone else, including the Shia religious establishment, Shia middle and professional class, and other Shia factions in the government. Sadr is now more feared than was the ousted president, Saddam Hussein, at the peak of his powers.

If secularists, Sunnis and Sadrists could form a solid opposition front they could block the Kurd drive for independence under the guise of autonomy as well as the plan of Hakim's Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) for the creation of a Shia autonomous region in the south.

All three call for a strong central government and reject the partition of the country, Kurdish annexation of Kirkuk and foreign meddling in its affairs.

But Sadr's modus operandi and ideology exclude partners from other factions. On a practical level, the feared Mahdi army is self-financing through racketeering, carjacking, protection and kidnapping.

He claims elements of his militia are out of control to distance himself from their cruel and unsavoury activities but he cannot dodge responsibility. Furthermore, his ministers have alienated many Iraqis by failing to deliver results in the agriculture, transport, public works and health ministries. The health ministry is not only mismanaged but preferential treatment is given to Shia area hospitals in doling out medications and equipment while facilities in Sunni areas are neglected.

On the ideological level, while he proclaims his independence from Tehran, he espouses vilayet-i-faqih, rule by the jurisprudent, the system by which Iran is governed.

The Shia establishment (which opposes a direct political role for clerics), Sunnis, secularists, Christians, Kurds, and other Shia fundamentalists do not want to place Iraq under a Shia clerical dictatorship. Sadr also preaches the imminent coming of the Mahdi, the saviour of the world - particularly of the Shias. This is a doctrine accepted only by his most devoted followers.

Finally, the rivalries between Sadr and other Shia groups has already erupted in violence on the streets of southern Iraqi cities. All-out intra-Shia warfare could very well be added to the violence of Iraq's ongoing anti-US insurgency and Sunni-Shia and Kurdish-Arab civil conflicts.

Bman

12-08-2006, 11:53 AM

Associated Press Online

December 8, 2006 Friday 12:24 AM GMT

Iraq Panel Concerned Over Al-Sadr's Army

By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON

The Iraq Study Group's grim report embraces the most worrisome estimates about Muqtada al-Sadr's private army: He has up to 60,000 fighters, and his followers are planted throughout the security forces protecting the Health Ministry and other Iraqi government institutions.

Making matters worse, the high-level panel believes the cleric himself may not be able to manage the diverse and growing parts of his network known as the Mahdi army.

"As the Mahdi army has grown in size and influence, some elements have moved beyond Sadr's control," the report concludes.

Al-Sadr's independent force is one of many factions bedeviling U.S. efforts to help Iraq's fledgling democracy gain control. It's part of a tableau of trouble detailed in the 160-page report, whose authors had broad access to U.S. intelligence data.

The commission, led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, also found fault with the intelligence agencies who were advising it.

The agencies undercounted the number of violent attacks in Iraq and failed to hire enough qualified analysts to study the insurgency, the report said. "Clearly, U.S. intelligence agencies can and must do better," it said.

Once a minor figure in Iraq, al-Sadr gained prominence through the reputation of his murdered father, a revered Shiite leader and dissident during Saddam Hussein's rule. The son's strength has grown rapidly in recent months.

In 2005, al-Sadr had fewer than 10,000 fighters, but the new report puts that figure now at as many as 60,000 or three fighters loyal to al-Sadr for every seven U.S. soldiers in the country. The latest estimate is believed to include a dedicated core as well as part-time fighters.

Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University and an adviser to the study group, said al-Sadr's numbers are less significant than his organizational prowess, which is bolstered by cell phones, Internet bulletin boards and other technology. "Their ability to mobilize people and get them in the streets is enormous," Hoffman said Thursday.

Showing al-Sadr's deep infiltration into the government, the report found that Iraqis loyal to him dominate the 145,000-strong Facilities Protection Service, which guards the ministries of Health, Agriculture and Transportation all controlled by al-Sadr's political allies. While providing jobs and money for the Mahdi army, the protective service has questionable loyalty to the civilian government, the report said.

"One senior U.S. official described the Facilities Protection Service as 'incompetent, dysfunctional or subversive.' Several Iraqis simply referred to them as militias," the report noted.

The Mahdi army is only one of the problems facing the U.S. in Iraq.

The study group concluded that the terrorist group al-Qaida in Iraq is now largely Iraqi-run and made up of Sunni Arabs. Some 1,300 foreign fighters are believed to support the group or be available to carry out suicide bombings, the study found.

The authors also provided new statistics to capture the situation's gravity. They noted, for instance, that four of Iraq's 18 provinces are highly insecure Baghdad, Anbar, Diyala and Salahuddin and account for about 40 percent of Iraq's 26 million people.

And they highlighted deep problems with the Iraqi economy. Growth was 4 percent this year, despite hopes of 10 percent gains. Inflation topped 50 percent, and unemployment is believed to range from 20 percent to 60 percent.

Corruption in the oil industry, the group said, is debilitating.

"Experts estimate that 150,000 to 200,000 and perhaps as many as 500,000 barrels of oil per day are being stolen," according to the report. "One senior U.S. official told us that corruption is more responsible than insurgents for breakdowns in the oil sector."

President Bush has not wholly embraced the report. He said at a news conference Thursday that he intends to wait for internal reviews from the Pentagon, State Department and White House National Security Council before making any decisions on a new course.

U.S. spy agencies, including the national intelligence director's office and the CIA, also are reviewing the report; three of the report's 79 recommendations were targeted at the intelligence community.

The panel said the CIA needs to send more people in Iraq to train the new government's intelligence service. It also found the U.S. does not have a firm grasp on the sources of the violence and that spy agencies still lack needed language and cultural skills.

As an example, the report noted that fewer than 10 analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency have more than two years of experience in analyzing the insurgency.

Yet DIA said those figures are inaccurate. The agency has many more than 10 experienced analysts deployed in Iraq, said spokesman Don Black. "Back here," he added, "we have hundreds engaged in the insurgency."

The group also said that intelligence officials are underreporting the violence in Iraq. Its official counts leave out the deaths of Iraqis, sectarian attacks whose source can't be determined and bombings or other attacks that don't hurt U.S. personnel.

"On one day in July 2006, there were 93 attacks or significant acts of violence reported," the study said. "Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence."

In an interview, the incoming House Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said the recommendations typify the complaints already made by Congress about spy agencies. More pressure from Congress is needed, he said.

Reyes said he has been frustrated because the U.S. hasn't engaged militias like al-Sadr's since the spike in violence beginning in August. He believes the military may need a temporary surge of 20,000 to 30,000 troops to regain control for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. "If Maliki and the Iraqi defense forces are not able to do it, then we should do it," he said.

Casey

12-08-2006, 01:33 PM

Associated Press Online

December 8, 2006 Friday 12:24 AM GMT

Iraq Panel Concerned Over Al-Sadr's Army

By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON .

As I've maintained, there are elements that claim that whole Lebanese war was a power play that got out of hand and was in fact intended as a diversion to actions taking place in Iraq with regard to al-Sadr's army.

I was not at all surprized after the fact when one of the Lebanese leaders stated he didn't intend for a war to break out, but Lebanon was just flexing their muscle at the onset.

In addition to this news.

Note: it has to be read through Google translator;

News about the departure of more than two thousand armed Mahdi army to Iran to receive training

عدد القراء : 301 .The number of readers : 301.

وكالة حق ـ متابعات :Agency right cover :

قالت مصادر عراقية مطلعة، إن نحو ألفي عنصر مسلح من جيش المهدي التابع لرجل الدين الشيعي مقتدى الصدر غادروا إلى إيران قبل عدة أيام لتلقي تدريبات خاصة.

Informed Iraqi sources said that about two thousand armed element of the Mahdi Army of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr left for Iran several days ago to receive special training.

وكشفت تلك المصادر لمراسل "قدس برس"، أن العناصر التي تم إرسالها إلى إيران هي من محافظتي الناصرية والعمارة حصرا، حيث سيتم تدريبهم بشكل مكثف من اجل أن يحلوا محل بقية عناصر جيش المهدي في تلك المحافظتين على أن يتم تسريح بقية العناصر عقب عودة هؤلاء.

Sources revealed that the correspondent "Quds Press" that the elements which had been sent to Iran was one of the provinces of Nasiriyah, Amarah exclusively, where they will be trained intensively in order to replace the rest of the elements of the Mahdi Army in those prefectures to be demobilized after the return of the rest of those elements.

وأشارت إلى أن هناك اتفاقا بين إيران ومقتدى الصدر، الزعيم الروحي لجيش المهدي، يقضي بتدريب عناصر نخبوية من جيش المهدي والاستغناء عن بقية العناصر، وذلك حتى لا تكون الأنظار موجهة على العدد الكبير لهذا الجيش، الذي تقدر بعض الأوساط تعداده بنحو 50 ألف مقاتل.

She pointed out that there was an agreement between Iran and Muqtada al-Sadr, the spiritual leader of the Mahdi Army, provides for the training of elite elements of the Mahdi Army and dispensing with the rest of the elements, so that there would be attention from the large number of the army, which is estimated to enumerating some quarters about 50 thousand fighters.

وبحسب المصادر، فإنه من المقرر أن يجري إرسال مقاتلين آخرين من محافظات جنوبية أخرى بعد عودة الوجبة الأولى التي غادرت إلى إيران.

According to the sources, it is scheduled to be sending other fighters from the southern governorates again after the return feed to the first left Iran.

(Other fighters are schedule to go once the current ones return)

وتتهم إيران بأنها تقوم بإمداد ميليشيات شيعية بالمال والسلاح، كما تقوم بتدريب عناصر هذه الميليشيات، بالإضافة إلى توفير الدعم اللازم لها، وخاصة ميليشيات جيش المهدي التابعة لرجل الدين الشيعي مقتدى الصدر، وهو ما تنفيه إيران، وكذلك تنفيه الحكومة العراقية.

Accuses Iran that it is providing Shiite militias with money and weapons, and trained elements of this militia, in addition to providing the necessary support to it, especially the Mahdi Army militia of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, which was denied by Iran, as well as denied by the Iraqi government.

http://64.233.179.104/translate_c?hl=en&langpair=ar%7Cen&u=http://www.76news.net/news.php%3Fid%3D2948

Bman

01-12-2007, 12:15 PM

Canberra Times

January 12, 2007 Friday

THE MAN WHO HOLDS THE KEY TO IRAQ'S FUTURE

HE IS A strange figure to be targeted as the No1 enemy of the US in Iraq. Four years ago, few had heard of the Shi'ite nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr inside or outside Iraq. Even somebody as suspicious as Saddam Hussein, who murdered his father and two brothers, did not think he would play any role in the coming crisis.

Now he holds the future of Iraq in his hands. He has far more popularity and legitimacy than many of the pro- American Iraqi leaders cowering in the Green Zone. He is seen by millions of Shi'ites in Baghdad and across southern Iraq as their spiritual and national leader. Rightly or wrongly, he is feared by Sunnis as their nemesis, a physical symbol that they are battling for their existence in Iraq.

He has now become part of the White House's demonology in Iraq. At one time the US believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for all its problems in Iraq problems that would be resolved once he was overthrown.

Today Sadr, a 32-year-old cleric in his black robe with fierce, staring, dark eyes, is denounced as the fomenter of sectarian warfare. Many Iraqi leaders never leave the Green Zone. Sadr has never entered it. He has a cult-like following. He controls Sadr City, the ramshackle, sprawling slum in east Baghdad which is home to 2.2 million Shi'ites, important cities such as Kufa and provinces such as Maysan. He can probably put 100,000 armed militiamen into the field. Much of the Baghdad police force follows him. Army barracks where Shi'ite units are stationed have pictures of him pinned to the walls.

Once in 2004 he was wanted ''dead or alive'' by the US forces and dismissed as ''a firebrand''. They soon found that his movement had deep roots. He controls 32 out of 275 seats in the Iraqi Parliament. He is the most important ally of the Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki. In 2004, the US and its former exile allies paid a heavy price for trying to exclude him from power. In 2005 and 2006, they recognised his strength. He became part of the political process in Iraq while opposing the US-led occupation.

Now, astonishingly, the US may be about to confront Sadr and his powerful social and political movement. This could lead almost immediately to a crisis for the US and George W. Bush's new strategy for Iraq. If the US Army, along with Kurdish brigades of the Iraqi army, do assault Sadr City, they are unlikely to win a clean victory. The rest of Shi'ite Iraq is likely to explode. A confrontation will convince many Shi'ites that the US never intends to let them rule Iraq despite their success in the elections. The US is already at war with the five million- strong Sunni community and is now fast alienating the Shi'ites. For the first time this year, polls showed that a majority of Shi'ites approve of armed attacks on US-led forces.

An offensive against Sadr's Mehdi Army will be portrayed as an attempt to eliminate militias. But it is, in reality, an attack on one particular militia, because it is anti-American. The Kurdish brigades in the Iraqi army take their orders from the Kurdish leaders and not from Maliki. The US also has good relations with the other Shi'ite militia, the Badr Organisation, which is the military wing of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

There is no doubt that the Mehdi Army includes death squads targeting Sunni but this is also true of Badr.

Sadr first confronted the US when he twice fought the US Army in 2004.

Though militarily unsuccessful the fighting established his credibility in his community. He attracted supporters because of the prestige of his family, and his blend of Iraqi nationalism and Shi'ite religion. He is also seen as the voice of the impoverished Shi'ites while Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and the Hawza, the Shi'ite religious establishment, are more representative of the better-off. His emergence as one of the most important political figures in Iraq was one of the great surprises after 2003. He is neither eloquent nor particularly charismatic, but he has made very few political mistakes. His swift rise is explained first by his family. He was born in 1974, the third son of Mohammed Sadiq al- Sadr. He is a distant cousin of Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al-Sadr, the Shi'ite revolutionary thinker, who was murdered by Saddam along with his sister in 1980. He had sought to develop a religious response to Marxism and Baathism by advocating a politically and socially activist Islam in contrast to the traditionally quietist Shi'ite religious leaders.

Muqtada's father, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, became influential in the 1990s. At first he was given leeway because he was an Iraqi nationalist and opposed to Iranian claims to lead the Shi'ites of Iraq. His sermons began with the words, ''No, no to America; no, no to Israel; no, no to the Devil.'' He was assassinated by Saddam's gunmen with two of his sons in 1999.

Muqtada al-Sadr became so powerful so fast because he was in the same tradition as his relatives. His militiamen are generally not paid and supply their own weapons. They are beginning to have a core of trained, paid professionals but they were never as militarily effective as the Sunni insurgents, many of whom were experienced soldiers.

A US attack on Sadr will open another front in the war in Iraq. It would split the Shi'ite coalition into pro- and anti-American factions. It would disrupt the Shi'ite-Kurdish alliance. It probably would not conciliate the Sunni insurgents. Sadr's movement thrives on martyrs. The only certain result of an all-out US assault on the Mehdi Army would be to deepen and widen the war in Iraq.

Patrick Cockburn is a columnist with The Independent.

IBinFarteen

01-12-2007, 12:53 PM

No, terrorist.

USA_SUPPORT

01-12-2007, 01:14 PM

We should have Kacked that fucker when we had the chance. Just another in the long line of mistakes that transformed Iraq into the wonderful, deadly, American killing mess we know and love today.

Sorry and all that, But I am FULLY convinced that that little bastard is MUCH more responsible for the insurgency than some guy named Zarqawi. He's clever though..trying to Broker a peace in a battle he promoted.

Hopefully this will be the mission for the upcoming 21 000 soldiers to take on sadr millita and it would be an good idea to sniper that alsadr guy.

Bman

01-19-2007, 10:16 AM

Associated Press Worldstream

January 19, 2007 Friday 1:36 PM GMT

Report: Al-Sadr says he is being targeted, has moved family to safe place

ROME

Iraq's radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said in an interview published Friday in an Italian newspaper that his Mahdi Army militia would not resist the Iraqi prime minister's planned security crackdown during the sacred Islamic month of Muharram.

Al-Sadr said that 400 of his men had been arrested and that he is also being targeted, prompting him to move his family to a secure location, the Italian daily La Repubblica reported.

Pressure is increasing on al-Sadr's militia ahead of a planned security sweep aimed at stemming the sectarian violence ransacking the Iraqi capital. On Friday, U.S. and Iraqi forces arrested one of the cleric's top aides in Baghdad, his office said.

"During Muharram, the Quran prohibits us from killing," the cleric told the Italian newspaper, referring to the Islamic lunar month marking the death of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Muharram starts Friday for Sunnis and Saturday for Shiites.

"Let them kill us. For a true believer there is no better moment than this to die: Heaven is ensured," he was quoted as saying. "After Muharram, we'll see."

"It is not us they want to destroy, but Islam. We are just an obstacle," said al-Sadr. "For the time being we will not put up resistance."

The newspaper did not say how or where it conducted the interview with al-Sadr.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has pledged to crack down on Shiite militias as well as Sunni insurgents in a planned security operation to quell the sectarian violence in Baghdad.

Critics have charged that two previous crackdowns failed because the prime minister, who gets political backing from al-Sadr, was reluctant in the past to confront the cleric's Mahdi Army. The militia is blamed for sectarian killings targeting the Sunni minority that was dominant under Saddam Hussein.

"There are many of us. We represent a majority in the country that doesn't want Iraq ... to become a secular state, and a slave to Western powers," Al-Sadr added, according to the Rome-based daily.

The Shiite cleric said he is being targeted.

"For this reason, I have moved my family to a secure location. I even have had a will drawn up, and I move continuously in a way that only few can know where I am," he was quoted as saying by Repubblica.

"But even if I were to die, Mahdi would continue to exist. Men can be killed. Faith and ideas cannot," he said.

Al-Sadr said that "there are at least four armies" ready to strike against his Mahdi militia: a secret army he said was trained in Jordan by the U.S. military, a private army he said is at the disposal of former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, Kurdish militias known as peshmergas and U.S. troops.

Al-Sadr also denied attending the Dec. 30 hanging of Saddam, dismissing the suggestion as "complete nonsense."

"My men were not there" either, he said. "There were people paid to discredit me. ... The goal was to pass Moqtada off as real enemy of the Sunnis. And they were successful."

The cleric said, however, that he "certainly did not cry" over Saddam's death and added that if it had been up to him "I would have hanged him in a public square for the entire world to see."

A fierce opponent of the United States, al-Sadr reiterated his calls for an immediate U.S. troop pullout, saying that is the only way that any solution for Iraq can be found.

Bman

06-04-2007, 09:19 AM

Sacramento Bee (California)

June 1, 2007 Friday
STATE FINAL EDITION

Military seeks al-Sadr talks, U.S. general says

Leila Fadel McClatchy Baghdad Bureau

BAGHDAD, Iraq

The U.S. military is seeking talks with Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr directly and through the government of Iraq, according to a top American general.

An al-Sadr aide confirmed that U.S. officials had approached the anti-American cleric's supporters but said that al-Sadr would never begin a dialogue with what his backers describe as "occupation forces."

"He has a grass-roots movement that he's always going to have; we have to recognize that," Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the second-ranking American commander in Iraq, told McClatchy Newspapers in an interview this week. "We're trying to talk to him. We want to talk to him."

In a video conference from Baghdad on Thursday, Odierno said the United States was reaching out to Sunni Muslims as well as Shiite armed factions such as al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia.

"We are talking about cease-fires, and maybe signing some things that say they won't conduct operations against the government of Iraq or against coalition forces," he said Thursday.

At the same time, however, U.S. and British forces have stepped up operations against the Mahdi Army in the sprawling Shiite slum of Sadr City in Baghdad and the southern port city of Basra.

Odierno said he wasn't sure whether al-Sadr's resurfacing in the Shiite holy city of Kufa last week was a good or bad thing for American forces in Iraq. While the cleric was away, his organization became more fractionalized, and part of the reason for his return, Odierno said, was "the consolidation of his powers." This could mean cleaning up rogue elements of the Mahdi Army, he said.

"I'm mixed; I'm not sure yet," Odierno said about the effect of al-Sadr's return on security. "I'll take a wait-and-see attitude."

Al-Sadr, who was widely rumored to be hiding in neighboring Iran for months, appeared at Friday prayers in Kufa last week spouting anti-American rhetoric and calling on his followers to work with Sunnis against a U.S. "occupation." Al-Sadr largely inherited his constituency from the millions of impoverished Shiites in Iraq who are loyal to his father, the popular Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, whom Saddam Hussein's regime assassinated.

While Muqtada al-Sadr's religious standing is shaky, his family name draws deep loyalty. Shiites credit his militia with protecting them from Sunni insurgents who target Shiite neighborhoods. But the Mahdi Army also is blamed for kidnapping and killing Sunni men.

If the Iranian-backed al-Sadr, who has cast himself as a national resistance figure, began talking with the United States, he'd risk losing support in the Iraqi street.

He called for a demonstration in Najaf in April against the American presence in Iraq, and legislators from his movement are circulating a bill in parliament to set a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal.

McClatchy Newspapers' Leila Fadel can be reached at lfadel@mcclatchydc.com

Bitch

06-04-2007, 09:26 AM

but...but... the US doesn't negotiate with terrorists....