Now he will, now he won't
The firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr plays a deadly game of chicken
Call to arms. Sadr himself is nowhere to be found, although he still rallies his rank and file with tattered posters and through the hypnotic chant of the mosque muezzin. At Friday prayers in nearby Kufa Mosque, a sermon read on his behalf said he wanted the religious authorities to take control of the Old City from his militia. But, he added, "I call on the Arab and Islamic people: If you see the dome of the holy Imam Ali shrine shelled, don't be lax in resisting the occupier in your countries."
Sadr's staying power may be surprising, but what is more worrisome is the force with which he has resumed his fiery mission. Unlike April's insurrection, fighting has seeped into six cities in the Shiite-dominated south and swelled in the massive Baghdad shantytown of Sadr City.
Just how much support Sadr has is unclear. The outcast scion of a family of revered Shiite leaders, Sadr's impassioned speeches contain somewhat contradicting demands, ranging from the resignation of the interim government to Sadr's inclusion in the political process. But to the men who swell the ranks of his Mahdi Army--largely young, unemployed, and dispossessed, and who are eager to follow a leader who speaks for the underdog--it is enough that he has identified an enemy. "A rabble-rouser he may be, but he should not be written off," says Samir Sumaidy, Iraq's former interior minister and a member of the new national assembly. "There is a lot of rabble." And that's what the Iraqi government is afraid of.
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