Al-Sadr blames US, calls for rally

Radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr issued a scathing attack on the United States on Friday, following one of the country’s bloodiest days

Radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr issued a scathing attack on the United States on Friday, following one of the country’s bloodiest days, blaming Washington for Iraq’s troubles and calling for a mass demonstration on April 9, the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad.

As al-Sadr’s remarks were read in a mosque, Shiites in Baghdad loaded wooden coffins into vans and shovelled broken glass and other debris into wheelbarrows in the aftermath of a double suicide bombing at a marketplace. At least 181 people were killed or found dead on Thursday as Sunni insurgents apparently stepped up their campaign of bombings to derail the seven-week-old security sweep in Baghdad. Violence has increasingly erupted in towns and cities outside the capital in recent weeks, as insurgent fighters take their fight to regions where US and Iraqi forces are thinly deployed. The US military and its diplomats have voiced cautious optimism about the sweep that began February 14 and emphasised that the full American surge force would not be in place until June.

An aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pledged the government would persist in its efforts to stem the violence.

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“There is a race between the government and the terrorists who are trying to make people reach the level of despair,” the adviser Sami al-Askari said. “But the government is doing its best to defeat terrorists and it definitely will not be affected by these bombings.”

Al-Sadr’s statement was his first since March 14, when he urged his supporters to resist US forces in Iraq through peaceful means. Al-Sadr has been said by US and Iraqi officials to be in neighboring Iran, but his aides insist he is still in Iraq. The latest statement was read to worshippers during Friday prayers at a mosque in Kufa, a Shiite holy city south of Baghdad where al-Sadr frequently led the ritual.

“I renew my call for the occupier (the United States) to leave our land,” he said in the statement.”The departure of the occupier will mean stability for Iraq, victory for Islam and peace and defeat for terrorism and infidels.”

Al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militiamen fought US troops in 2004 but have generally cooperated with an ongoing US — Iraqi security push in Baghdad, blamed the presence of US forces in Iraq for the rising violence, lack of services and sectarian bloodshed. “You, oppressed people of Iraq, let the entire world hear your voice that you reject occupation, destruction and terrorism,” he said in calling for the April 9 demonstration. “Fly Iraqi flags atop homes, apartment buildings and government departments to show the sovereignty and independence of Iraq, and that you reject the presence of American flags and those of other nations occupying our beloved Iraq. Keep them there until they leave our land,” he said.

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