Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr pulled back from confrontation with the government on Friday, asking his followers to continue to observe a shaky ceasefire and not to battle government troops. | He's safe in Qom, but someday he might have to come back to Iraq. |
| "So, really, y'got nothing to worry about from me. You don't really have to kick my ass..." |
A Reuters correspondent heard the statement read out by a cleric during Friday prayers in Sadr's eastern Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City. Many of Sadr's followers, who have been agitating for the ceasefire to be scrapped and say government and U.S. forces have used it to kill or arrest their members, were unhappy. "We were disappointed by the statement," said Abu Yasir, a Mehdi Army commander. "We waited impatiently to end this ceasefire and this is the opposite of what we hoped."
Other fighters chided Sadr for veering between confronting government forces one day and urging reconciliation the next. "He was supposed to give us a decisive solution: either we should end the ceasefire or we should stay at home and keep silent," said Abu Aya, another commander, visibly angry.
| It's Iraq. These are Arabs. What was said yesterday isn't the same thing as what will be said tomorrow, and neither resembles what's being said today. |
Hundreds have died in Shi'ite areas since Maliki, himself a Shi'ite, launched a crackdown in the southern oil city of Basra. Although Basra has since become quieter, fighting has continued in Sadr City and other Shi'ite parts of Baghdad.
The U.S. embassy said Sadr should renounce all violence in order to secure a position in Iraqi politics. "We urge Sadr and his followers to desist from violence in all of its forms and against all persons, Iraqi or otherwise," U.S. embassy spokesman Armand Cucciniello said. "We're of course happy that he's urging his followers to extend the ceasefire. But that he's willing to extend the fight against the coalition isn't something we're supportive of."
Though the Mehdi Army's tens of thousands of fighters claim allegiance to Sadr, it has never been entirely clear how much control he exercises over a mass movement seen by many Iraqis as anarchic and undisciplined. Another commander, Abu Ammar, said: "Despite being unhappy with the statement, we will obey Sadr because we revere him."