Shia cleric, formerly known as firebrand Moqtada Sadr condemns attacks

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO261238.htm

Iraq Shi'ite leader Sadr condemns attacks

BAGHDAD, July 12 (Reuters) - Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shi'ite cleric whose Mehdi Army is among pro-government militias accused by critics of attacks on minority Sunnis, condemned on Wednesday such violence and called for peace so as not to "destroy Iraq".

"I do not accept any assaults on the Iraqi people nor any forced displacements nor any kidnappings. These are all unacceptable," Sadr said in forcefully conciliatory remarks in a rare interview on Iraqiya state television on Wednesday.

Sadr, who has supporters in Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki's national unity coalition, was responding to charges by Sunni Arabs, police and other officials that his militia was behind some recent sectarian attacks in Baghdad neighbourhoods.

The young cleric, who draws mass support from impoverished Shi'ites and who led two uprisings against U.S. forces in 2004, called on his supporters not to engage in violence.

[SoCalDem]

1. Hmm from firebrand to strong-man to appeaser

perhaps he's being "groomed" by our cia types... Maybe he will be the new and improved saddam.. Our old one is broken, and the proxy government we set up seems to be a do-nothing organization..

[NNN0LHI]

2. Haven't researched this think tank at all. Bush may own it for all I know?

http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20060712-051026-7547r

Report: Iraq's Sadr critical to stability

AMMAN, Jordan, July 12 (UPI) -- Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his forces are vital to Iraq's stability and must be engaged to avoid an all out civil war in the country, a new report says.

Dismissed as a radical firebrand behind some of the sectarian violence that threatens to tear Iraq apart, Sadr must be "recognized as a serious political actor" since "he has become the authentic spokesman for a significant portion of traditionally disenfranchised Iraqis," according to a report released Tuesday by the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank.

Sadr led his 10,000-strong Mahdi Army in a deadly 2004 showdown against U.S. troops following Saddam Hussein's ouster, but has since maintained calls for national unity and largely kept his forces in check, even after a series of vicious attacks against Shiite civilians, the report notes.

However civil strife has surged after the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite holy shrine in Samarra and some of Sadr's followers are said to have indiscriminately attacked Sunni Muslims.