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Who is Muqtada al-Sadr
Sadr threat was created by the United States. Unless we learn to keep our hands off other people's freedoms, Sadr won't be the last enemy we create only to have to destroy.
Source: The TIP, 2004-05-14
Candidate: Big Government
Today, American soldiers invade Najaf, for the Shi'ia, the holiest city in Iraq. More Americans will undoubtedly die. More Iraqis will die. More wounded, and beloved landmarks, including the world oldest and largest cemetery, will be damaged if not destroyed. Why Muqtada al-Sadr?
Al-Sadr is a young Shi'ite cleric hoping to fill the leadership gap created when Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party was toppled by the American led coalition a year ago. Al-Sadr's newspaper, Al-Hawza, carried what the Coalition forces considered anti-American and anti-Coalition articles including an article in February that claimed a bombing in Iskandariyah that killed 53 people was a rocket fired by an Apache helicopter, not a car bomb. Another article criticized the occupation forces' activities in Iraq and alleged that the CPA was "implementing a policy of starving the Iraqi public."
Because of these articles, Coalition Provisional Authority head L. Paul Bremer ordered Al-Hawza doors be padlocked and the newspaper shut down for 60 days. After coalition forces closed the Al Hawza newspaper March 28, Sadr’s supporters flooded the streets of Baghdad in protest.
On April 3, coalition authorities arrested Mustafa al-Yaqubi, a senior aide to Sadr. He was wanted in connection with the killing last April of a rival cleric, Ayatollah Sayyed Abdul Majid al-Khoei; authorities say they will arrest Sadr on similar charges.
Muqtada al-Sadr is one of the country's most talked about Shi'a leaders, with a popular following among poorer Iraqi Shi'a Muslims. While his movement involves only a small percentage of Iraq’s Shiites, it appears to be gaining momentum and popularity, and experts warn that the threat Sadr represents is serious.
On October 10, 2003, al Sadr announced that he had appointed what he called an authentically Islamic government to replace the Iraqi Governing Council appointed by Bremer. But a rally in support of his Islamic government in Baghdad last fall drew only a few hundred supporters, an indication that Sadr had, at that time, failed in his bid for political power
Over the winter, experts say, Sadr began to lose support as Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Sistani, 72, grew more influential; Sistani’s views forced the CPA to change its plans for turning over authority to Iraqis several times. Sistani has counseled patience with the U.S. occupation and retains the allegiance of most of Iraq’s 14 million Shiites.
However, experts say, the closing of Al Hawza and the arrest of Yaqubi—and the grisly murders of four U.S. contractors March 31 in Falluja, which seemed to test the limits of coalition authority—have galvanized support for Sadr.
The paper was widely seen as Sadr’s mouthpiece; the CPA accused it of printing lies that stirred up anti-American sentiment. After Yaqubi’s arrest, the protests turned violent: thousands of armed members of Sadr’s private militia, the Imam Mehdi Army, took over police stations and engaged in gun battles with coalition forces in four cities across Iraq that killed a reported 8 U.S. soldiers and one soldier from El Salvador. Dozens of Iraqis were also killed and hundreds were reported wounded.
Muqtada al Sadr's father, the Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, was the most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq in the late 1990s. His uncle, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr, was a leading Shiite activist before his execution by Saddam Hussein’s forces in 1980. Al-Sadr went underground in February 1999 after a spray of gunfire—from Saddam’s agents, according to most accounts—killed his father and two brothers. He inherited a network of schools and charities built by his father, along with the allegiance of many of his followers. Only 31, Sadr lacks the decades-long religious training required of high-ranking Shiite authorities. He bases his claim to authority on his lineage.
His apparent goal, some Iraq experts say, is to establish an Islamic theocracy. Sistani, in contrast, has backed some form of Islamic democracy.
In his sermons, Sadr had called for non-violent resistance and stopped short of invoking a jihad against U.S. troops. That changed April 4, after the coalition closed his newspaper, when he instructed followers to abandon their street demonstrations, since they “have become a losing card and we should seek other ways.” Instead, Sadr said, “Terrorize your enemy, as we cannot remain silent over its violations.” That admonition reportedly sparked the deadly street battles with coalition forces.
On April 2, Sadr used his Friday night sermon to declare himself “the striking arm” of Hamas and Hezbollah, two anti-Israel organizations on the U.S. list of terrorist groups. “The fate of Iraq and Palestine are the same,” al-Sadr said, according to news reports. “We promise the Palestinians and all the oppressed that we will fight and defeat all the oppressors.” He also referred to the death of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the Hamas leader killed by Israeli forces on March 22, as an attack on all Shiites.
Sadr created the Imam Mehdi Army, a force his aides claim numbers 10,000 men, to support his political movement and impose order. (Some reports estimate the number is more likely between 1,500 and 3,000.) His followers have clashed violently with militias supporting rival clerics, and over the weekend with coalition forces in the Baghdad slum known as Sadr City, in Sadr’s hometown of Kufa, near Najaf, in Basra, and in Amara.
Fighting continued April 5 as the coalition used ground forces and Apache helicopters to raid Sadr’s office in Baghdad, according to news reports. Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East specialist at the Congressional Research Service, says, “I would say he is part of the resistance—I would consider him an adversary to U.S. forces.”
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