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Indeed, I have not seen a united Iraq around anything for a long time. Condemnations all-over-the-map [in Iraq] against Iran following the missile attack, from Erbil to Baghdad, including the "crowner" of kings Shiite preacher Muqtada al-Sadr. Why is this interesting? Because the shooting of the Iranians takes place on days when there is some breakthrough in the contacts for the formation of the government with the participation of factions affiliated with Iran— roi kais • روعي كايس • רועי קייס (@kaisos1987) March 13, 2022

Baghdad Wakes to Sounds of Helicopters, Talk of a People’s 'Revolt' Sharon Behn May 21, 2016 4:58 AM BAGHDAD— Baghdad woke Saturday to the early morning sounds of helicopters flying overhead, most of them heading in and out of the fortified International Zone after protesters defied bullets and tear gas to storm the area. As they fled the gunfire and tear gas Friday afternoon, some carrying their injured friends across the bridge away from the IZ, the anti-government protesters vowed they would return – but with weapons. Many are followers of Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr who, like many of the...

It was only a matter of time before ordinary Iraqis stormed the walled-in palaces of their corrupt politicians. hile the United States has been fixated on the Islamic State and the liberation of Mosul, the attention of ordinary Iraqis has been on the political unraveling of their own country. This culminated on Saturday when hundreds of protesters breached the U.S.-installed “Green Zone” at the heart of Baghdad for the first time and stormed the Iraqi parliament while Iraqi security forces stood back and watched. The demonstrators, supporters of radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, toppled blast walls, sat in the vacated...

An Iraqi Shi'ite militia group said on Friday it would attack U.S. interests in Iraq and the region if Washington carries out a military strike on Syria. President Barack Obama said on Friday the United States was still in the planning process for a response to the chemical weapons use in Syria. "All their interests and facilities in Iraq and the region will be targeted by our militants if the United States insists on attacking Syria," a spokesman for the Iraqi militia group al-Nujaba'a told Reuters by telephone, without giving details. Al-Nujaba'a is an umbrella group which includes Iraqi Shi'ite...

The return of Muqtada al-Sadr to Iraq after more than three years of self-imposed exile and his unexpected January 21 departure for Iran only two weeks later have provoked speculation over the security implications of his activities in Iraq and his precise relations with Iran (Fars News Agency, January 22; Gulf News January 21; Tehran Times, January 23). In light of a recent series of terrorist attacks in the shrine-city of Karbala during the Arbain religious festival (marking the passage of 40 days after the anniversary of the death of Imam Hussein), al-Sadr’s departure has raised concerns about the Sadrist...

The US military broke up an Iranian-backed terror cell associated with Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army during a raid in Al Kut in central Iraq. Iraqi officials are claiming the US military conducted the raid without approval. Coalition forces killed one Iranian-backed terrorist and captured six others during a raid that targeted a financier that supports both the Mahdi Army Special Groups and the Brigade of the Promised Day. One woman was also killed during a gunfight that broke out during the raid; the woman was caught in the crossfire. The Brigade of the Promised Day was created by Sadr...

MG: Who do you believe murdered your father and why do you think he was killed? Hayder Al-Khoei: I believe it was Moqtada al-Sadr who ordered the murder. My grandfather did not accept Moqtada's father as a Grand Ayatollah and was attacked (verbally) many times by the senior al-Sadr and his followers. Ever since my father left Iraq he was seen as a traitor by them who left the Iraqis to suffer while living a life of luxury in London. My father was older and had more religious credentials than Moqtada and was a natural rival.

After a month of fighting, the Mahdi Army has disappeared from the streets of Basra, the largest city in the south. The army and police are everywhere, and people are providing information on where Mahdi Army personnel are hiding out, and the locations of their weapons caches. Up north, in the Sadr City section of east Baghdad, the Mahdi Army is still fighting hard. But the army and police have the upper hand, and are pushing the Shia militiamen back block by block. Mahdi Army leader Muqtada al Sadr has responded by threatening to order his men to go after...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Iraqi military push into the southern city of Basra is not going as well as American officials had hoped, despite President Bush's high praise for the operation, several U.S. officials said Friday. A closely held U.S. military intelligence analysis of the fighting in Basra shows that Iraqi security forces control less than a quarter of the city, according to officials in both the United States and Iraq, and Basra's police units are deeply infiltrated by members of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army. "This is going to go on for a while," one U.S. military...

Shi'ite cleric and leader Muqtada Al-Sadr was secretly transferred a few days ago from Iraq to Iran for hospitalization as he was comatose. It was reported that his illness resulted from food poisoning. Al-Sadr is being treated by Iranian specialists, as well as by Russian doctors brought in to help the Iranian medical staff treat him.

The 'Manchurian Mullah' February 01, 2008 New York Post Amir Taheri AS the "student" arrives in a bulletproof limousine with heavily armed guards, his teachers, ignoring that he's two hours late, greet him deferentially. The scene takes place at the Shiite seminary in Qom, Iran's holy city. The 35-year-old "student": Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the Mahdi Army, a militia often deemed one of Iran's chief assets in Iraq. Sadr has spent much of the last 10 months in Iran, living in a 14-bedroom villa in Tehran's posh Farmanieh neighborhood. From there, he travels 90 minutes to Qom twice a week,...

Embedded With the Enemy? by: Bethany Stotts, October 25, 2007 The new art exhibit, “Unembedded”—a photojournalists’ account of the Iraq War—has been featured at several prestigious universities amid widespread applause as to its self-described “nuanced view of the civilian instability and increased violence in Iraq that has followed the US-led invasion in 2003.” A very popular University-sponsored exhibit since its January 2006 New York debut, the collection has been displayed at the University of Northern Arizona, Orange County Community College, Yale University's Institute of Sacred Music, Wayne State University, Philander Smith College, the College of Public Health at the University...

An Iraqi man arrested this month at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport for immigration law violations was charged Wednesday with lying to authorities about his travels outside the United States and about anti-American material he was carrying. When Ali Mohammed Abboud Almosaleh, 40, arrived at the airport on a flight from Amsterdam July 7, he told customs officers he had been out of the country for one month and had traveled to Syria, court documents said. But he actually had been gone for five months and had visited Iraq. He told officers that his digital video discs with images of...

Cindy Sheehan, Tom Hayden, and the Hate America Left meet with pro-Ba'athist members of the Iraqi parliament to discuss “peace.” TO FIND PEOPLE WHO HATE AMERICA AS MUCH AS THEY DO, the Fifth Column Left had to go halfway around the world to meet with Iraqi political leaders who call terrorism “honorable national resistance” and say foreign jihadists “are guaranteed Paradise” – and at least one of whom has ties to militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr. By the end of the trip, the American leftists would echo these sentiments. Somehow most of the media – occupied with interminable coverage of Hurricane...

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr appeared in public for the first time in months on Friday, delivering a fiery anti-American sermon to thousands of followers and demanding U.S. troops leave Iraq. It was not immediately clear why he chose to return now to his base in the Shiite holy city of Najaf from Iran. His speech had new nationalist overtones, calling on Sunnis to join with him in the fight against the U.S. presence. He also criticized the government's inability to provide reliable services to its people. Al-Sadr's reappearance, four months after he went underground at the start of the...

BAGHDAD (AP) - 0316dv-baghdad-briefing After weeks of cooperation with a new security plan, radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr decried U.S. forces as occupiers Friday and called on his followers to "shout 'No, No America!'" in a sign of resurgent anger and opposition. Thousands of Shiites flooded from the mosque where al-Sadr's statement was read by a preacher at Friday prayers, spilling into the streets of the Sadr City slum to protest the two-week-old American military presence there. The U.S. military says al-Sadr has gone to Iran. Officials with al-Sadr's Mahdi Army did not explain why al-Sadr chose to issue the...

December 15, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- The decision by radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to pull his political bloc out of the Iraqi government to protest Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's decision to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush on November 30 has brought the Iraqi political process to a virtual standstill. Major Iraqi political parties have now engaged in behind-the-scenes talks to form a new political alliance to help break the impasse. The Iraqi daily "Al-Azzam" reported on December 12 that the main Shi'ite party in Iraq, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), has been in...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Lawmakers and cabinet ministers loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have suspended participation in parliament and the government to protest Prime minister Nouri al-Maliki's summit with U.S. President George W. Bush. A statement issued Wednesday by the 30 lawmakers and five Cabinet ministers said their action was necessary because the meeting constituted a "provocation to the feelings of the Iraqi people and a violation of their constitutional rights." The statement did not explain that claim. Al-Maliki and Bush are meeting in Amman, the Jordanian capital, Wednesday and Thursday looking for ways to end the violence in Iraq....

A buddy of mine came over to my place tonight to celebrate the take-out of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He's on his way to Baghdad to be an advisor to Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki. "What advice do you think I should give him, Jack?" he asked me over too much Famous Grouse Scotch. Here's what I told him: "Well, the very first thing he should do is hang Saddam. Get the trial over with tomorrow, take Saddam and every one of his cronies on trial out into the bright Baghdad sunshine and publicly hang the bastards on world-wide television. Then...

The Iraqi commander during a controversial raid by American and Iraq forces is backing the U.S. version of a battle that left 16 Iraqis dead, Lara Logan reports. In an exclusive interview with CBS, the Iraqi commander says accusations that U.S. forces killed innocent civilians in Sunday's raid on a building in Baghdad were "not true." Accounts of the Baghdad raid varied. Aides to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said 18 men were killed in the joint U.S.-Iraqi raid on a mosque. The Americans said Iraqi special forces backed by U.S. troops killed 16 "insurgents" in a raid on a...