Thank you very much for the translation. Are you sure they are al-Mahdi? We have been going back and forth all day about if they were aligned with al-Sadr or not.
I got the website from this report, which sounds like they are not aligned with al-sadr. What do you thin?
report follows:
Fierce fighting has broken out in Najaf and it is alleged that the chief of police there has been fatally wounded. Fighting involves the Americans and the Iraqi National Guard on one side and a fringe Shia sect called the Yamani Group on the other side, though it is alleged that American soldiers accidentally targeted members of the I.N.G. as well.
Al Yamani is another name for Ahmed bin al Hassan who was a student of Ayatollah Mohammed al Sadr, the Shia cleric slain in 1999 and the father of Muqtada al Sadr. About two years ago al Yamani began calling on people to follow him and claiming that he had seen Imam al Mahdi (the twelfth Shia Imam who went into occultation in the 10th century AD and is expected to return like the messiah) and that the Mahdi had ordered him to lead the nation. He sent letters to presidents and leaders (including Bush in the U.S. and Khamenai in Iran ) asking them to leave power and submit to his orders. Until recently his movement was quiet and it was ignored by Shia and the authorities. It is still not clear why the fighting has started but the Yamani group issued a statement on their website accusing the Iraqi forces of targeting and destroying one of their mosques.
http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/1051/Fighting_Breaks_Out_In_Najaf
Website for those who missed it:
http://almahdyoon.org/Yes they are called "Ansar Al Mahdi", which means the "followers of the Mahdi" and they are associated with the "Mahdi Army".