Cleric's Militia Sees U.S. as Enemy

[Barrett808]

BAGHDAD — "Will you disarm for the Americans?" the animated preacher at the microphone asks a thousand wound-up young men seated on a city street turned outdoor assembly hall.

"No, no to America!" the listeners respond in unison, pumping their fists toward the heavens in utter rejection of such a notion. "Yes, yes to Islam!"

This was the well-choreographed inaugural gathering of the Army of the Mahdi, a volunteer militia composed of followers of a militant young Najaf-based Shiite cleric, Muqtader Sadr.

The eager volunteers had arrived by bus, car and on foot in the sprawling Shiite ghetto of Madinat al Thawra, or Revolution City, hastily built in the 1960s as a kind of urban-renewal project to house impoverished migrants from the south.

...

"The Americans never apologize to anyone: They didn't apologize for the atomic bomb that killed so many people," said Abdul Hadi Darraji, who unleashes fiery sermons each Friday in Sadr City.

"But they apologized to us! The Americans are looking after their interests. The Army of the Mahdi will be there for our interests."


(more)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-najafside15sep15,1,3532379.story?coll=la-iraq-complete