Word: sadr
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...past six weeks, Kufa and the two cities that house the holiest shrines of Shi'as, Najaf and Karbala, have been the center of al-Sadr's revolt. His militia claim to be protecting the shrines from U.S. forces that have besieged the cities. U.S. commanders insist al-Sadr is a small-time threat whose appeal is limited to a ragtag bunch of angry young men. But judging by the number and intensity of worshippers thronging the mosque in Kufa last Friday, the U.S. may be underestimating the rebel leader. In fact, the more the U.S. aims its guns...
...Sadr's adherents use their intimate knowledge of the terrain to outwit the Americans. As supporters stream from Baghdad 90 miles south to Kufa for Friday prayers, U.S. troops finally manage to cut the road just outside the city. In response, locals begin flagging down approaching cars, warning drivers of the checkpoints ahead and showing them how to avoid the blockade by taking a circuitous side route. Later, when U.S. troops close the road between Kufa and Najaf, prayergoers snake around back streets, along dusty trails and through a massive garbage dump. The mounds of trash give cars almost perfect...
...crowd at the mosque erupts when al-Sadr appears. At 30, he is pudgy and pale faced. He stands at the lectern draped in his burial shroud, a symbol of his determination to die for his faith. He reads his address at high speed, his head down, his body occasionally rocking from side to side. Al-Sadr speaks to the crowd with no rhetorical flourishes or demagogic appeals but makes his purpose plain just the same. He takes a swipe at the Shi'ite hierarchy, which has withheld its support for his uprising. "When I die," he says...
...Sadr seems almost to be courting death at U.S. hands, knowing that it, more than anything else, would spark a broad Shi'ite insurgency. His followers call him "the living shahid," or martyr, according to Fatah al-Sheikh, editor of the pro--al-Sadr newspaper Ishraqatal Sadr. If the Americans ever do kill al-Sadr, al-Sheikh says, they will be faced with a "revolution that will never end." Al-Sadr's supporters, he adds, "will kill all Americans, civilians or otherwise...
...Sadr speaks, guards keep watch over the city from ramparts high above the courtyard, which, despite the brutal sun, are also packed to overflowing. Virtually every male in the city carries a combat weapon, even vendors who sell food and trinkets outside the mosque walls. As prayers draw to an end, the gunfire and occasional loud explosion seem to be getting closer. As soon as they finish, the Mahdi militia looses a salvo of Katyusha rockets at the U.S. base less than a mile away...