Word: sadr
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...Capitol Hill for maintaining U.S. troop levels in Iraq, a key Iraqi advocate of sending them home was making a power play. Tensions had been high in Baghdad Tuesday morning, in anticipation of a million-strong march against the U.S. occupation called by Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. His Mahdi Army had been engaged in weeks of violent clashes with U.S. and Iraqi government forces in the capital and in the southern city of Basra, and many in the capital feared the worst. But on Tuesday afternoon, Sadr suddenly called off the demonstration, declaring in a statement...
...Sadr's announcement came just as cars ferrying worried Iraqis began to clog Baghdad's streets, amid tightened security checkpoints and swirling rumors of an impending curfew. But whether this recent call for restraint will actually ensure calm remains uncertain - Sadr also threatened to call off the Mahdi Army's now defunct cease-fire if attacks by government forces continued. And his response to a demand by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that he disband his militia or face exclusion from the political process was typically ambiguous: Sadr said he would put the matter to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani...
...Despite the cautiously optimistic assessments offered by Petraeus and Crocker, many Iraqis remain pessimistic about the weeks and months ahead. The country is still reeling from the fresh wave of violence brought on by Maliki's disastrous military offensive against Sadr's militia that began in Basra two weeks ago. On Tuesday, Sadr City - the sprawling Baghdad Shi'ite slum that is the capital's largest neighborhood and a stronghold of the Mahdi Army - remained locked down as fighting continued between militia fighters and Iraqi and American forces. Politicians from a number of parties warned of an impending humanitarian crisis...
...Sadr City is suffering," said Fadhila party MP Bassam Sheriff. "There needs to be a humanitarian dimension to this...
...Some of Sadr's supporters are smug in the face of the Prime Minister's warning. "Maliki couldn't even stop the renewal of the Blackwater contract. How could he disband all the militias?" Fawze Akram, an MP from the Sadrist block, told TIME...