Free Republic

The newspapers are predictably filled with articles about how 52 U.S. soldiers died in Iraq last month – the highest toll since September. Iraqi civilian casualties are also said to be at the highest level since August. These losses are being used to cast aspersions on claims of progress in Iraq. Even one death is too many and 52 deaths is tragedy multiplied 52-fold. But let's keep some perspective. As the icasualties.org website makes clear, for better or worse, April was still one of the lighter-casualty months during the long war in Iraq. More important, casualties cannot be looked at...

via translation - Sadr threat of an "open war" if the attacks against him are continuing NAJAF (Iraq) - The head radical anti-American Moqtada Sadr threatened Saturday to launch "an open war" if the operations of American and Iraqi forces against his movement continued, in a statement signed by him and published in Najaf (south of Baghdad). "I give a final warning, and I gave my word to the Iraqi government to choose the path of peace and stop the violence against its own people, if it is a government of destruction," the young religious leader. "If it does not...

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Moqtada al-Sadr's militiamen Tuesday battled troops in four Iraqi cities on Tuesday, including the capital, as the hardline Shiite cleric threatened a countrywide campaign of civil revolt. Heavy clashes broke out between Sadr's Mahdi Army fighters in the southern oil city of Basra, killing at least seven people and wounding 48, and in Kut and Hilla, both south of Baghdad, officials said. As evening fell, Mahdi Army fighters fought with Iraqi and US forces in their Sadr City bastion in eastern Baghdad for the first time since last October, a security official and witnesses told AFP. Troops...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia ordered shops to close in some Baghdad neighborhoods on Monday in what they said was the start of a "civil disobedience campaign." The show of force by the feared militia, which the U.S. military once called the greatest threat to peace in Iraq, alarmed residents, but leaders of Sadr's political bloc in parliament stressed that it was a peaceful protest. The militia has kept a low profile since Sadr called a ceasefire last August and extended it last month, a move U.S. commanders say has helped to sharply reduce...

BAGHDAD - A day after radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr resurfaced to end nearly four months in hiding and demand U.S. troops leave Iraq, American forces raided his Sadr City stronghold and killed five suspected militia fighters in air strikes Saturday. U.S. and Iraqi forces called in the air strikes after a raid in which they captured a "suspected terrorist cell leader," the U.S. military said in statement. The statement claimed the captured man was "the suspected leader in a secret cell terrorist network known for facilitating the transport of weapons and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from Iran to...

US FORCES SAY CAPTURE TOP AIDE TO IRAQI CLERIC SADR OVER KIDNAPPING, KILLING OF FIVE U.S. SOLDIERS

Excerpt - BAGHDAD, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is still in Iraq and has not left for Iran, several of his aides said on Wednesday, after American officials suggested he may have departed to avoid an offensive against militants. The conflicting reports over the anti-American cleric's whereabouts came after Iraq said on Tuesday it would close its borders with Iran and Syria and lengthen a night curfew in Baghdad to try to curb unrelenting violence in the capital. Four Sadr aides said he was still in Iraq, with some saying he was in the holy Shi'ite...

Moqtada al-Sadr with deputy, who was arrested by US Forces.

One way to understand Moqtada al-Sadr is to think of him as a young Mafia don. He aims for respectability, and is willing to kill for it. Yet the extent of his power isn't obvious to the untrained eye. He has no standing army or police force, and the Mahdi Army gunmen he employs have no tanks or aircraft. You could mistake him—at your peril—for a common thug or gang leader. And if he or his people were to kill you for your ignorance, he wouldn't claim credit. But the message would be clear to those who understand the brutal...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - As a car enters the Shiite district of Sadr City, a group of men step from the curb and flag down the vehicle. "Who are you and where are you going?" one of them demands. All is well after passengers produce papers, not from the government but from the office of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. "We are sorry," one man says. "May God be with you." Al-Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, keeps a sharp eye out for strangers in the teeming Baghdad district, home to 2.5 million people, as well as other Shiite areas across the...

BAQUBA, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi and U.S. troops battled Shi'ite militiamen in a village northeast of Baghdad on Thursday, and witnesses and police said U.S. helicopters bombed orchards to flush out gunmen hiding in the palm groves. Iraqi security officials said Iranian fighters had been captured in the fighting, in which the commander of an Iraqi quick reaction force and two soldiers were shot dead by a sniper. They did not say how the Iranians had been identified. The U.S. military had no immediate comment. Police said the fighting was still going on at 6 p.m. (1400 GMT) in the...

A mob set a British Warrior armoured vehicle ablaze in Basra yesterday, forcing its gunner to leap from the turret, in the worst riots to sweep Iraq's second city in two years. The soldiers who escaped from the burning Warrior were said to be in a stable condition in hospital Three soldiers suffered burns and other injuries and the Warrior was badly damaged by a hail of petrol bombs. The violence in the British-controlled sector cast doubt on Whitehall's plans for an early withdrawal from the south of Iraq. It broke out after two members of the Special Air Service...

Moqtada Sadr calls with calms after violences interchiites NAJAF (Iraq) - the radical chief Moqtada Sadr Shiite called Thursday with Najaf his partisans with calms after violences which set ablaze the south of the country and Baghdad on bottom of competition with the party Shiite of the supreme Council of the Islamic revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). "I call believing them to preserve the blood of the Moslems and to remain on their premises", declared Mr. Sadr with the press, while addressing to his partisans. Two people have be killed and 15 others wounded in violences implying of partisans of...

BAGHDAD, Oct 12 (AFP) - The US commander for Baghdad's Sadr City professed "cautious optimism" Tuesday over a peace initiative with Shiite rebel cleric Moqtada Sadr's militia, but warned that breakaway factions of the radical movement were refusing to comply. "I'm cautiously optimistic for a couple of reasons. One, we've never before had an initiative announced with the endorsement of Moqtada Sadr to disarm and disband... They'll generally listen to him," Colonel Abe Abrams told AFP. "And so that's a good sign. But it's just a sign. It's not a turning point. It's a starting point. It's not a dramatic...

NAJAF, Iraq (AFP) - Iraqi police sealed off the shrine city of Najaf and neighboring Kufa amid fears of fresh violence, a week after radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr ended his bloody revolt against US troops. Police vehicles blocked off the main road and officers fired shots in the air as people approached checkpoints ahead of Friday afternoon prayers, the major day of worship in Islam. "We are afraid of violence after prayers in Kufa," a Sadr stronghold, one officer said. In another sign of the lingering tensions in Najaf, around 250 locals earlier demonstrated to demand Sadr and his...

The deputy for Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said al-Sistani and Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have reached an agreement in talks to end the standoff in Najaf, Iraq. Aides described the agreement as a "positive deal."

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A radical cleric whose uprising two months ago has left hundreds dead and threatened to enflame the Shiite heartland said Friday he would cooperate with the new government if it works to end the U.S. military presence. Gunmen blew up a police station south of Baghdad in the fourth such attack against Iraqi security installations in less than a week. The conciliatory tone by cleric Muqtada al-Sadr came during a sermon read by an aide to a congregation in Kufa, scene of recent fighting between his al-Mahdi Army militia and U.S. forces. In the sermon, the fiery...

Iraq cleric 'calls for new start' Radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr has reportedly backed for the first time US moves to gradually hand powers over to an interim Iraqi government. The change of heart came in a sermon at Friday prayers in the town of Kufa, two weeks after the government was formed. Mr Sadr, a firebrand whose militia has fought US forces since March, called for a new start and an end to conflict, according to witnesses. But his supporters clashed with members of a pro-US faction in nearby Najaf. Stones and shoes were thrown in the clash at...

IowaPresidentialWatch.com / Apr. 7, 2004... Fiery young Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr incites violence in Iraq. Father in Heaven, please protect our men and women and the coalition troops in Iraq. In Jesus' name, amen.

KUWAIT (Reuters) - Senior Iraqi Shi'ite leaders said on Saturday that a radical Muslim group led by an ambitious young rival orchestrated the killing of cleric Abdul Majid al-Khoei in Najaf this week. Khoei was hacked to death by a mob at Imam Ali Shrine, the holiest Shi'ite site, days after he returned from exile in London to help Iraq make the transition to democracy. Iraqi Shi'ite leaders said Jimaat-e-Sadr-Thani, a splinter group led by Moqtada Sadr, the 22-year-old son of a late spiritual leader in Iraq, carried out Thursday's attack which left al-Khoei and another cleric dead. "The attackers...