Word: moqtada
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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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...
...against mounting chaos in the capital and in the south of the country. The Iraqi government has placed the city under a curfew, banning all civilian vehicle use, until Sunday morning. The south of Iraq, where heavy fighting between Iraqi forces and militias loyal to powerful Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has raged since Tuesday, is also under curfew. Over one hundred people are reported to have been killed, and hundreds more injured, as Iraqi forces led by Shi'ite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki struggle to take control of the city...
...government, the offensive by Iraqi security forces against militiamen in Basra is increasingly drawing in the United States, both militarily and politically. U.S. air power was used in the key port city for the first time on Thursday night in support of Iraqi forces trying to dislodge fighters of Moqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army, and U.S. troops clashed with Mahdi Army militants in the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City on Friday. President Bush, speaking in Washington, called the fight a "defining moment" for Iraq, but the clashes could have important implications for the U.S. mission there...
News from the south of Iraq was no less grim. In Basra, Iraqi forces pressed their three-day offensive against what both Iraqi and Coalition forces continue to call "criminal elements." Spokesmen for Moqtada al-Sadr have openly denounced the military campaign and called for the immediate withdrawal of Iraqi forces. In what is widely regarded as an effort to maintain the precarious ceasefire renewed by Sadr in February, both coalition forces and the Iraqi military have carefully avoided referring to the armed fighters as Sadr's supporters, but rather as unaffiliated criminals and thugs. "The operation in Basra...