Posted on 07/26/2003 9:33:30 AM PDT by knighthawk
KUFA, Iraq Stepping up his challenge to Iraq's U.S.-led occupiers, an influential Shiite Muslim cleric accused coalition forces Friday of crossing all the "red lines" and vowed that his religious army would drive U.S. troops out of the holy city of An Najaf.
Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr told 50,000 worshippers gathered at the main mosque in the holy Shiite city of Kufa south of Baghdad that after his "Imam Army" pushes the Americans out of An Najaf and other Iraqi cities, the men will take charge of defending those cities.
Speaking after his Friday sermon, Sadr said tens of thousands had come forward to join the proposed army, but he insisted that it would not be armed for now.
"To start with, we don't have any arms," said Sadr, the son of a senior cleric who was assassinated along with two other sons in 1999. "Tens of thousands have volunteered and many of them said they wanted arms. I said, 'No, I don't want you to be armed now.' We shall only use peaceful means."
He said among the new army's tasks would be to stop what he called the social decay and immorality brought to Iraq by the coalition troops and to counter "alien ideologies."
To thunderous chants of "Muqtada" and "Allahu Akbar," or God is great, he accused the U.S.-led occupation forces in Iraq of detaining four to five Shiite clerics every week and of storming religious schools belonging to the al-Hawza al-Ilmiyah, the Shiites' ancient seminary in An Najaf. He said such actions and the establishment of what he called the U.S.-$ led Iraqi Army constituted crossing "red lines" and were unacceptable.
"We have only one demand, and that is for them to withdraw from Iraq," said Sadr, who is believed to be 30. "They are enshrining their occupation by creating the Governing Council," he said, alluding to the 25-member, U.S.-backed interim administration created this month.
Officials of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the formal name of Iraq's U.S.-led occupiers, say Sadr has a limited following and his supporters do not represent the country's Shiite majority. They criticized as irresponsible protests held last week by his followers outside the coalition's Baghdad headquarters and at a U.S. military base in An Najaf.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the officials also said that there were complaints from An Najaf's residents that Sadr followers were smuggling arms into the city.
On Friday, U.S. troops and the Iraqi police set up checkpoints on the 180-kilometer, or 110-mile, road from Baghdad to Kufa and nearby An Najaf. At one checkpoint, bus passengers were asked to leave their vehicles while troops conducted searches.
Sadr has drawn backing among some young Shiites, primarily from the popularity of his late father - Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr. His calls for stricter adherence to Sharia also found resonance among young, poorer Shiites.
In his Friday sermon, Sadr repeated the scathing attack he issued last week on the Governing Council - the majority of whose members are Shiites, but are either secular or members of moderate factions - and spoke of the "siege" of An Najaf by U.S. troops.
"The siege is an act of terrorism," he said. "It's a siege of all Shiites."
Responding to what he called the coalition's assertion that troops were acting on the behest of An Najaf's residents, he said: "Whoever accepts the occupation is not a Muslim and the land of Najaf doesn't belong to its resident alone. It's the capital of all Muslims."
Relations between U.S. troops and residents of An Najaf had been calm until last week, when Sadr asserted that American forces were encircling his home in an attempt to arrest him.
But Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Conlin, the commanding officer here, described it as a misunderstanding. Apache helicopters had circled overhead and extra troops were on the streets, he said, but that was to provide security for a visit by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.
The temporary expansion of the U.S. presence could not be explained to Iraqis in advance, he said, for security reasons. Group would challenge coalition forces.
Freedom fighters hiding in Mosques. All sort of fun.
Well, at least we have found something to do for the unarmed troops the Japanese are sending. They can babysit this bunch. Maybe convert them to Buddhism.
These people need to get their thinking straightened out.
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