Sadr reappears to criticise Allawi

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FIREBRAND Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr preached a sermon at the Kufa mosque today after an absence of nearly two months, criticising Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi amid a massive showing by his supporters.

"Allawi, I tell you, what right do you have to order the reopening of the Hawza paper, if you were not the one to shut it down in the first place," Sadr told the faithful, who swarmed into the grand mosque in Kufa, 150km south of Baghdad.

"Damn him and damn the occupier."

Allawi ordered Sunday the lifting of a ban on Sadr's weekly paper that had been imposed by former US administrator Paul Bremer at the end of March on charges of instigating violence. The young cleric assured his supporters that he was standing by their side and will continue the struggle for their rights.
"I will never abandon you no matter what, and I am close to you and living the same life as you," said Sadr to loud cheers. "I never fought the occupation to attain any worldly rewards, but for higher and nobler motives."

The closing of Sadr's paper and the arrest of one his deputies in late March unleashed a rebellion in Baghdad and the Shi'ite centre and south that left hundreds of people dead.

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