IRAQ
Iraq: Sadr calls for united resistance to occupation
Doug Lorimer
31 May 2007
On May 25, Moqtada al Sadr, Iraq’s widely popular Shiite cleric whose Madhi Army militia has been accused by US officials of being responsible for a wave of killings of Sunni Muslims since February 2006, emerged publicly for the first time in months to deliver a Friday evening prayer speech in the southern holy city of Kufa, in which he called for US forces to get out of Iraq and vowed to protect Iraqi Sunnis and Christians.
The May 26 Washington Post reported that Sadr stepped up to the rostrum and ordered the 6000-strong crowd “to repeat three times” after him the words: “No, no to America. No, no for the occupation. No, no for Israel. No, no to imperialism. No, no to the devil”, before delivering a “fiery speech”.
“As in previous speeches”, the Post reported, “Sadr demanded a timetable for the pullout of US troops” and “urged an end to clashes between his Mahdi Army militia and Iraq’s security forces … He criticized the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for not providing basic services to Iraqis and urged Sunnis to unite with Shiite against the US occupation.”
Sadr “told his followers that it was forbidden to spill ‘the blood of our brothers, the Sunnis and Christians’. He railed against Sunni extremists who have recently been forcing Christians to convert to Islam, calling such actions detestable and against the principles of Islam.”
The May 20 Washington Post reported that Sadr, who “controls the second-biggest armed force in Iraq, after the US military”, and 30 parliamentary seats, “senses an opportunity in recent moves by Sunni insurgent groups to break away from militants influenced by al Qaeda, and in the threats by the largest Sunni political bloc to leave the government, which opens the possibility for a new cross-sectarian political alliance, his aides said …
“Sadr’s political followers have had informal talks with Sunni politicians and insurgent groups in the past month. ‘We think there is some possibility to have a closer relationship’, said Hussein al-Falluji, a legislator in the Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni political bloc.”
Abu Aja Naemi, a commander in the 1920 Revolution Brigades, one of the main, largely Sunni-based guerrilla formations, told the Post that Sadr’s representatives have had informal discussions with his group.
“Sadr’s aides say he was encouraged to launch the new cross-sectarian initiative by the increasingly violent opposition from nationalist Sunni insurgents to the jihadists aligned with al Qaeda”, the Post reported.
“We want to aim the guns against the occupation and al Qaeda, not between Iraqis”, Ahmed Shaibani, a 37-year-old Shiite cleric who leads Sadr’s newly formed reconciliation committee, told the Post.
The May 25 Inter Press Service reported that Sadr’s push for a “cross-sectarian united-front strategy was facilitated by the fact that Shaibani had befriended members of Sunni nationalist insurgent groups while he was held in US detention centers from 2004 through 2006 …
“The talks with Sunni resistance leaders have been coordinated with a series of other moves by Sadr since early February.” The Sadrist leadership has reportedly “expelled at least 600 men from the Mahdi Army who were accused of murder and other violations of Sadr’s policy”.
The half-a-million-strong April 9 anti-occupation demonstration mounted in Najaf “was was apparently timed to coincide with his initiative in opening talks with the Sunnis” IPS reported, adding: “The demonstration not only showed that Sadr could mobilize crowds comparable to the largest ever seen in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, but also made clear Sadr’s commitment to transcending sectarian interests. The demonstrators carried Iraqi flags instead of pictures of Sadr or other Shi’i symbols. It also included a small contingent of members of the Sunni-based Islamic Party of Iraq”, which with its allies has 44 MPs.
