Word: sadr
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...have seen a shift in Sadr's strategy, I believe," said Gen. Raymond Odierno, the ground commander for U.S. forces in Iraq. "He has talked more and more about moving toward a more humanitarian movement, a political movement more like his father had, and away from a more lethal, militia-type movement...
...Sadr movement has, of course, long been involved in social and political activism in addition to militia violence. Its activists can be found doing everything from from holding seats in parliament to offering cut-rate propane in poor Shi'ite neighborhoods. That the Sadrists might choose to emphasize some of these activities over armed confrontation is quite plausible, but Moqtada al-Sadr is notoriously unpredictable, and the thinking behind his moves is often unclear. Sadr could just as easily be simply biding his time until surge troops leave in July...
...Sadr learned in 2004, at great cost to his organization, that open confrontation with U.S. forces is a bad idea. The Mahdi Army fared poorly against U.S. troops in two separate uprisings in southern Iraq that year. In the years that followed, Sadr's militia fighters kept up a kind of shadow war against U.S. troops, staging sporadic guerrilla attacks. But the Mahdi Army has largely avoided confronting U.S. forces for years, and the cease-fire Sadr announced unexpectedly six months ago was not directed at the Americans as much as it was aimed at halting fighting between Sadr...
...Extending the cease-fire also allows Sadr to distance himself from the thuggish violence of members of his militia, while keeping the organization intact despite U.S. and Iraqi government demands that he disband...
...while Friday's announcement was greeted with relief, most in Baghdad are still left wondering about Sadr's intentions and plans. "I'm always real modest about analyzing our capacity to analyze," said U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker. "We don't see very much of the Sadrists. And the those we do see I think definitely represent the clear political trend; they don't much like militias either. But what insight do we actually have into a very, very complex phenomenon? Not much...