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In a recent intelligence report, Western analysts suggested that while international attention is focused on Iranian nuclear ambitions, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is covertly destablising southern Iraq. If so, the primary objective is to undermine British control in Basra. Western intelligence agencies have long claimed that the IRGC is providing support for the al-Mahdi Army headed by militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Tehran is also actively aiding the Badr Corps of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. These are the principal militias of the Shia communities in the south of the country and are now among...

March 30, 2006: The March 26 raid, on a kidnapping gang hideout, turned into an embarrassing media circus for the radical Shia Arab militia led by pro-Iran cleric Moqtada al Sadr. The Sadr people promptly came up with photos and interviews asserting that the raid (by Kurdish police commandoes) actually hit a mosque and killed sixteen innocent worshipers. About fifty Iraqi police were involved in the operation, accompanied by 25 American troops (some of them advisors to the police unit.)

al-Iraqiya TV quickly aired images of the dead inside the al-Moustafa mosque. All of the dead appear to have been either Mahdi Army fighters or persons in the mosque killed in the crossfire. Zeyad shares a translation of part of what he saw on Iraqi television at Healing Iraq. al-Iraqiya and al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army appear quite chummy. The al-Iraqiya cameraman refers to the Madhi Army dead as “our guys”. Someone in the background was asking the cameraman to film grenades lying around the corpses, to which the cameraman responded: “I can’t show our guys’ grenades.” “No, these are American grenades,”...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Tens of thousands of supporters of a militant Shiite cleric filled central Baghdad's streets Saturday and demanded that American soldiers go home, marking the second anniversary of Baghdad's fall with shouts of "No, no to Satan!" To the west of the capital, 5,000 protesters issue similar demands in the Sunni Triangle city of Ramadi, reflecting a growing impatience with the U.S.-led occupation and the slow pace of returning control to an infant Iraqi government. The protest in Baghdad's famous Firdos Square was the largest anti-American demonstration since the U.S.-led invasion, but the turnout was far less than...

NAJAF, Iraq - With fighting raging for a fifth day in Najaf, Iraq's interim defense minister on Monday accused neighboring Iran of sending weapons to Shiite insurgents here. Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan made the comments during an interview broadcast on the Arab-language television network al-Arabiya. "There are Iranian-made weapons that have been found in the hands of criminals in Najaf who received these weapons from across the Iranian border," Shaalan said. Asked if Iran is still considered the "top enemy" of Iraq, he answered ambiguously. "From far and near, the facts that we have say that what has happened to...

The Iraqi minister of internal affair said that there will be no negotiations with Muqtada Al-Sadr and I salute the Iraqi government for taking this decision. We’ve expected this from the very beginning and we stressed more than once that people like Muqtada are not fit for a peaceful political process and they will refuse all calls for talks because they closed the road to any talk a thousand years ago. It’s time to take serious actions against the militant groups and it’s time to end any truce with them. The ING, supported by the multinational forces must do their...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq (news - web sites)'s interim prime minister issued a decree allowing a controversial newspaper to reopen after it had been closed by U.S. officials in March, setting off months of fighting between U.S. forces and militants loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The weekly Al-Hawza was the mouthpiece of al-Sadr's "Sadrist" movement, routinely carrying his fiery sermons on its front page along with articles sharply critical of the U.S.-led occupation, which formally ended June 28. Iraq's former American governor, L. Paul Bremer, ordered the newspaper closed for two months on March 28 for allegedly inciting...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Shiite gunmen seized a police station Thursday in Najaf in the first outbreak of fighting since an agreement to end weeks of bloody clashes between U.S. troops and militia forces. Four Iraqis were killed and 13 were injured, hospital and militia officials said. Gunmen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr took control of the Ghari police station just 250 yards from the Imam Ali Shrine, witness Mohammed Hussein said. The station was looted and police cars were burned. "We sent a quick-reaction unit to assist the policemen defending the station, but they were overwhelmed by al-Sadr fighters,"...

Muqtada Al-Sadr is the fourth son of Ayatollah Muhammad Muhammad Baqir Al-Sadr. The elder Al-Sadr was imprisoned by Saddam Hussein between 1985 and 1992. Then, following the assassination by Saddam of a number of leading Ayatollahs of Iranian origin, Al-Sadr, aided apparently by Saddam himself, became the head of the Hawza in Najaf. Ayatollah Al-Sadr cultivated his relations with the tribes surrounding the city of Najaf and his popularity soared. Suspicious of the Ayatollah's growing power, Saddam's agents ambushed and killed Al-Sadr and two of his four children in 1999 near the Mosque of Ali, one of the holiest Shi'a...

<p>NAJAF, Iraq (CNN) -- Fighting between U.S. forces and the Mehdi Army militia continued Saturday, two days after radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr pledged to withdraw most of his militia from the Najaf region if U.S. forces did the same. The U.S.-led coalition halted offensive operations, following the announcement of al-Sadr's offer, in an effort to give the tentative peace deal a chance. Iraqi police also exchanged fire with the insurgents in Kufa Saturday, according to a CNN stringer in neighboring Najaf.</p>

A soldier's view from the frontline By JOE ROCHE A KNIGHT RIDDER/TRIBUNE FORUM BAGHDAD, Iraq - I am a soldier with the 16th Engineering Battalion of the 1st Armored Division. Our unit is presently in combat against the uprising of Muqtada al-Sadr. This situation is extremely sensitive. Had we entered this prematurely, victory would not have been possible. We have been involved in preparations and much planning. Today we are scoring amazing successes against this would-be tyrant. I ask only that the American people be brave. Don't fall for the spin by those portraying this as a disaster. It just...

Why Iraq Is Becoming Vietnam Liberals have long dreamed of turning our occupation of Iraq into another Vietnam, a scar on the face of America that they could revel in. I believe in many ways, they are succeeding. Their latest victory is their success in turning incidents of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison into an indictment of American foreign policy and the President. Our Defense Secretary was dragged before a motley group of Senatorial inquisitors, many of whom don’t have the moral standing to tie his shoe, much less interrogate him. The “scandal” is the Mai Lai massacre to...

<p>NAJAF, Iraq -- With American troops closing in and a growing number of his gunmen in hiding, radical Shi'a Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr yesterday offered unconditional talks with U.S. authorities seeking to kill or capture him.</p> <p>His spokesman in Najaf said Sadr, whose men have launched widespread attacks on American forces in the last week, was retreating further by dropping demands that U.S.-led coalition forces withdraw from residential areas, free Iraqi detainees and end the siege of Fallujah before negotiations could proceed.</p>

Tehran, 11 April: Without mentioning any specific sources, Al Sharq al-Awsat has published a report claiming that Muqtada al-Sadr will be transferred to Iran as a political refugee. According to a report by the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA), the newspaper, which is published in London, quoted a source whom it only described as "an Iraqi Shi'i official". It claimed that Iraqi Shi'i figures are trying to mediate on Muqtada al-Sadr's behalf to organize his transfer to Iran as a political refugee. Quoting the source, the aforementioned newspaper claimed that the intermediary was an important Iraqi political figure. Quoting the...

Fallujah, Iraq - A U.S. AC-130 gunship raked Iraqi insurgents Friday night after hundreds of women and children fled the besieged city Fallujah during a U.S.-declared pause in the marine offensive. On the anniversary of the fall of captive Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's regime, Baghdad and parts of central Iraq were chaotic. At a square in the capital where Saddam's statue was toppled a year ago, soldiers took down a new icon: pictures of the radical Shiite Muslim cleric whose followers have risen up against coalition forces in the south. Gunmen running rampant on Baghdad's western edge attacked a fuel...

Coalition officials say a radical young cleric named Muqtada al Sadr is behind a recent spate of suicide bombings and political assassinations that he's using to try to gain power over Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority. But they haven't yet decided how to deal with him for fear of touching off even worse violence. Coalition officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say they now think that a car bombing Sunday at the Baghdad Hotel was a Sadr-inspired assassination attempt against Moffowak al Rubaie, a moderate Shiite physician who sits on Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council. Al Rubaie, who was in the hotel,...

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...