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تاريخ التسجيل : 23/05/2007
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 |  موضوع: Moqtada al-Sadr appears at prayers in Iraq  الإثنين مايو 28, 2007 1:19 am | |
| Back in the picture Moqtada al-Sadr appears at prayers in Iraq
Fist appearance of Shiite cleric five months after US commanders claim he fled to Iran.
KUFA, Iraq - Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr made a dramatic return to frontline Iraqi politics on Friday, calling for unity and the withdrawal of US troops five months after claims he had fled the country.
The young Shiite cleric, head of one of Iraq's most powerful armed movements, arrived at his mosque in the central town of Kufa to the cheers of more than 1,000 supporters who showered him with sweets. "No, no to the unjust! No, no to America! No, no to colonialism! No, no to Israel! No, no to Satan," he declared in his address. "I want to renew our demand for the departure of the occupation," he said, warning the Baghdad government that his supporters have enough votes in parliament to block any renewal of the American military mandate. "I say to our Sunni brothers in Iraq that we are brothers and the occupier shall not divide us. They are welcome and we are ready to cooperate with them in all fields. This is my hand I stretch towards them." Sadr had not been seen at his mosque in Kufa since last October, and in January the US military alleged that he had fled to Iran ahead of a massive security operation. His supporters denied this, insisting that Sadr was still in Kufa. During his absence Sadr supporters quit Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government and now claim to have recruited 148 members of Iraq's 275-member parliament to support a law demanding the expulsion of US forces. Sadr's Mahdi Army militia has also clashed with Iraqi and US security forces, who have carried out raids to round up death squad leaders and arms smugglers connected to the large and loosely organised movement. Nevertheless, Sadr's core movement has by and large maintained a ceasefire. A joint US and Iraqi security station has been established on the edge of Sadr City, the east Baghdad slum which has long been the main bastion of Sadr's supporters, and sectarian death squad killings have diminished. This week, a delegation of Sunni tribal sheikhs met a group of their Shiite counterparts in Sadr City and vowed to work together for national unity. "Any fighting between our brothers in the Mahdi Army and the Iraqi army and police is forbidden," Sadr declared, blaming the clashes on "the occupier." "I advise the dear brothers in the Mahdi Army to resort to peaceful means like picketing or demonstrating when attacked by bad people," he declared. Initially underestimated by US authorities and Iraqi officials, the son of revered Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr has shown that he could pull political strings even from his undisclosed location. After throwing his weight behind Shiite politician Nuri al-Maliki, ensuring that he became Iraq's prime minister a year ago, Sadr then ordered his followers to pull out of the premier's cabinet in April. It took Maliki six weeks to find replacements. His supporters denied Sadr ever went into hiding and claimed that he was still living and working in the holy city of Najaf, but on April 9 he failed to turn up at a huge rally of his supporters in the city. Sadr's thousands-strong Mahdi Army has been implicated in the death-squad killings of Sunnis over the past year, and in December the Pentagon identified him as the biggest threat to stability in Iraq. Sadr responded by dropping out of sight and ordering his followers not to resist a joint US-Iraqi crackdown to restore stability to Baghdad on one hand, and extending feelers to various Sunni groups on the other. On Tuesday, his followers in Baghdad met representatives of a Sunni tribal alliance from Anbar province with political aspirations of their own, an example of the kind of national reconciliation Maliki has failed to provide. The walkout by Sadr's six ministers was in protest at the government's refusal to set a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops -- something a majority of Iraqis and especially Sadr's supporters favour. The movement has been working hard to bolster its nationalist and anti-American credentials, something Sadr was always known for before his more recent associations with sectarian death squads. Unlike his rivals in the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, the next biggest Shiite party in the government, Sadr does not favour dividing Iraq into autonomous regions. The cleric is idolised by millions of Shiites in Najaf and the teeming Baghdad slum renamed Sadr City after the fall of Saddam Hussein. "He has become the authentic spokesman for a significant portion of traditionally disenfranchised Iraqis who, far from benefiting from the former regime's ouster, remained marginalised from the emerging political order," an International Crisis Group report said. Sadr's father and two brothers were killed in 1999 by gunmen allegedly sent by Saddam, but young Sadr, now in his 30s, shot to prominence in April 2003 after the US-led invasion of Iraq. Since then, Sadr has twice challenged US forces with armed rebellions. Though his fighters took a beating, the nationalist cleric has gained an aura that is the envy of Iraqi political leaders who established close ties with Washington. Where once the March 2004 US closure of Sadr's newspaper Al-Hawzah sparked months of clashes with US forces, now the crackdown on his militant cells hardly draws a response as he awaits the outome of the security operations. But some say the cleric, once wanted "dead or alive" by US authorities, is battling to retain his tenuous hold on militia leaders and is careful not to let any of them gain too much influence . | |
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