Word: sadr
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...recent fighting in the southern city of Basra as evidence of poor Iraqi leadership and ill-prepared and unmotivated U.S.-trained Iraqi troops. While Iran helped negotiate a deal that curbed the fighting in Basra, Tehran continues to supply Shi'ite groups linked to cleric Moqtada al Sadr with lethal weapons and training that continue to take a toll on U.S. forces, Pentagon officials say. That, they add glumly, suggests Iran could continue a game of hard-nosed cat-and-mouse for as long as U.S. troops are in Iraq...
...counterinsurgency puts the American Army in a perilous condition," Lieutenant Colonel Gian Gentile wrote last month. "Its ability to fight wars consisting of head-on battles using tanks and mechanized infantry is in danger of atrophy." Gentile argues that it was the cease-fire declared last year by Sadr as well as the U.S. military's alliance with former Sunni militants against al-Qaeda that were more important than the surge in turning the tide in Iraq...
Maliki's statement on Friday came amid Shi'ite demonstrations against the U.S. in Baghdad's Mahdi Army-dominated neighborhoods of Sadr City and Shula, and after a recent call by al-Sadr for a massive demonstration in Najaf, now scheduled for Baghdad on April 9. Crocker allayed fears that Sadr's provocative call for a million-man march would lead to renewed violence. "Millions of people converged on [the holy city of] Karbala for the Arba'een [a Shi'a holiday] in very peaceful conditions. I think that's what Iraqis now expect and want to see," he said...
Crocker's sentiment was echoed by Emad Mohammed Klantor, a close associate of Sadr, who told TIME that the demonstrations were indeed aimed at the U.S., which the party continues to view as the primary enemy. "But I do not expect the demonstrations to be violent. God willing, they will be peaceful," he said...
...another Sadr ally, parliamentarian Ghofran al-Saidi, was far less willing to ease the pressure off the Iraqi government. She told TIME that despite Maliki's apparent act of goodwill, a blockade was still in effect around Sadr City Friday night, preventing the injured from reaching hospitals, and she saw little change after Maliki's statement. "There is a real resistance to this government among the people," she said...