Word: najaf
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...cleric Moqtada al-Sadr today called for an end to the fighting between his followers and Iraqi forces in the escalating conflict that has engulfed the southern city of Basra. In a statement issued from his headquarters in Najaf, al-Sadr demanded, in return, that the government give his supporters amnesty and release any followers that are being held...
...Moqtada al-Sadr stopped the Mahdi Army's activities for six months, and then extended that for six more months," Haider al-Jaberi, a member of Sadr's political committee in the holy city of Najaf, told reporters on Saturday. "But the Iraqi government didn't respect that decision...
...last serious attempt to defeat Sadr's fighters was in the summer of 2004, when Iyad Allawi, at the time the interim Prime Minister, authorized U.S. forces to attack the Mahdi Army in Baghdad and the holy city of Najaf. Then a poorly armed and ill-trained band, Sadr's men were easily routed, but Allawi didn't have the stomach to deliver the coup de grace: he allowed Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the senior Shi'ite cleric, to broker a peace that allowed Sadr to keep his fighters and, more importantly, his freedom...
...operations of his Mahdi Army is a major reason for the recent security successes in Iraq; and most expected it to be extended. But recently the Sadr camp has said that it might end the cease-fire. On January 18, a spokesman for Sadr in the religious capital of Najaf issued a statement warning that "the rationale for the decision to extend the freeze of the Mahdi Army is beginning to wear thin." Is the U.S. alarmed? It is not - and that is alarming...
Satterfield is underrating the Mahdi Army's boss. I met Moqtada al-Sadr in November 2003 at his office down a narrow alleyway in Najaf. We sat on pillows on the floor and he answered my questions with short, perfunctory statements. Barely 30, he had a round face, broad shoulders and a habit of glaring at guests beneath his thick, black eyebrows. He came across as menacing yet dull. At the time, he was holding massive Friday-afternoon prayer rallies that he populated with poor workers bused in from the slums of Sadr City in Baghdad 100 miles...