Word: moqtada
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...resistance thus far has been confined to Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority, there are worrying signs emerging among the Shiite majority. While the leading clerics and some of the Shiite organizations previously based in Iran have counseled moderation and working with the U.S. authority, the young firebrand Moqtada al-Sadr appears to be wrapping his own bid for supremacy among the Shia in an increasingly strident campaign to confront the occupation, reinforcing his claims to leadership of the streets by channeling popular sentiment over the heads of those taking a more moderate approach. Last weekend's clashes at Karbala...
...blessing of Iraq's Grand Ayatollah, joined the Iraqi Governing Council established by Bremer, and are therefore committed to pursuing their goal of ending the occupation through cooperation with the U.S. But those groups are facing a growing and increasingly militant challenge from the more radical followers of Moqtada al-Sadr, who is more inclined to challenge the Americans, albeit through non-violent means for now. But he did call for recruits for an army last Friday, and denounced the Governing Council as "infidels." The following day, 10,000 of his supporters took to the streets of Najaf in response...
...Sadrist movement among the Shiite majority. While the Council has a Shiite majority and includes the two longest-established Shiite Islamist parties, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Dawa party (both of which waged underground war on Saddam from Iran), the followers of young Moqtada al-Sadr - who control the Shiite ghettoes of east Baghdad - have rejected involvement in political bodies created by the Americans, and are challenging the other factions for supremacy among Shiite clerics, in a battle that has the potential to turn violent...
...Mohsen mosque in Sadr City, a Shiite Muslim slum in Baghdad, I watched tens of thousands of people cheering a militant cleric, Moqtada Sadr, who is refusing to deal with the U.S. authorities in Iraq. But his antagonism isn't as surprising, perhaps, as the friendliness of the flock of 10-year-olds outside the mosque. I couldn't shake them off as they persisted in giving me the thumbs-up sign and repeating things like, "Bush, good," and "Thank you, Mr. Bush...
...deem, as Rumsfeld does, calls from some Iraqi Shiite clergy for a theocratic government in Baghdad as signs of Iranian meddling is simplistic. The most ardent advocates of that view are followers of Moqtada al-Sadr, who remained inside Iraq under Saddam's repression and are disdainful of rivals who chose exile in Iran. They may have some backing from elements in Iran, but their movement is essentially homegrown. By contrast, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which had been based in Tehran for the past 23 years and whose militia was trained by Iran's hard...