9 replies to this topic

[Thaqalain]

Shiite firebrand Sadr urges restraint over Iraq communal tensions 45 minutes ago



NAJAF, Iraq (AFP) -     Iraq's firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr has made a rare public appearance in the holy city of Najaf to call for restraint amid sectarian tension between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.



"Any action targeting unarmed civilians is forbidden under any circumstances," Sadr said Monday during a news conference, the first held by the young cleric since the fierce fighting that pitted his militia against US troops last year in Najaf.

"We reject these terror operations, whether they are carried out by the occupiers or others," he added.

"The occupiers are trying to sow division among the Iraqi people, but there are no Sunnis and Shiites. Iraqis are one."

The comments he made from his house in the Shiite city's Hannana neighbourhood came against a backdrop of sectarian violence and a day after at least 46 bodies killed execution-style were found in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq.

Several of the victims were Sunnis and the repetition of such incidents has fueled fears that Shiite militias would no longer heed calls from their clerics to show restraint in the face of attacks by extremist Sunni groups.

The young cleric led one of the most serious challenges to the authority of the now-defunct US administration by igniting an uprising in southern and central Iraq against occupation troops.

The fighting culminated in a bloody weeks-long standoff around Najaf's Imam Ali shrine last August, before Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani -- the highest Shiite authority in Iraq -- brokered a solution.

Sadr has since shown interest in joining the political arena and officially agreed to disband his Mehdi Army. But the militia remains an organised force and the cleric has continued to speak out against the US troop presence.

"If occupation forces leave Iraq, there will be no ethnic conflict here, and I'm ready to fight terrorists wherever they are if the occupiers leave," he told reporters.

Edited by Thaqalain, 20 May 2005 - 09:11 AM.

[Lester]

I'm starting to like this guy!  He may have bitten of more than he can chew though.  The al queda / ba'athist part of the insurgency has alot of supporters both financial and otherwise.

[queenjafri]

interesting. i thought that the U.S. should stay to calm the area of an all out civil war, but i guess the U.S. is the reason why the sunnis and shias are fighting?  

[Thaqalain]

•  الصدر:سأعود للصلاة بجامع الكوفة قريبا
  عدد القراءات « 41 »شبكة كربلاء للأنباء - 18/05/2005مإقتحم عدد من الجنود الإمريكيين اليوم مكتب الشهيد الصدر في جنوب بغداد و تم إعتقال ثمانية أشخاص من أنصار الصدر من المكتب.

جاءت هذه الخطوة بعد التصريحات التي أطلقها الصدر ضد القوات الإمريكية التي طالبها بالخروج الفوري من العراق .

و كان الصدر قد أكد في مؤتمر صحفي عقده بعد طول خفاء أكد فيه أنه سيعاود الى أن يأم صلاة الجمة بجامع الكوفة المعظم حيث صرح قائلا " انا لن اترك مسجد الكوفة وسوف اعود في الايام القادمة ان شاء الله" .

كما أكد على توثيق الصلة بينه و بين المرجعية العليا في البلاد قائلا " انني على استعداد لاجراء تنسيق مع المرجعيات الدينية وبالاخص السيد السيستاني من اجل بلدي".

و أما عن عشرات المعتقلين من أنصاره قال الصدر" انا قلبي معهم في السراء والضراء واتمنى من المختصين النظر في هذا الامر وما يزيد الاستتباب في العراق هو اخراج المعتقلين عامة والمقاومين كافة وليس التيار الصدري فقط".

وعن سبب غيابه طيلة هذه المدة قال الصدر: الانسان يحتاج في بعض الاحيان التوجه الى مجتمعه مرة والى ربه مرة وانا توجهت خلال فترة غيابي الى الله عز وجل.

[Thaqalain]

http://iraqtunnel.co...p?showtopic=980It seems that the movement of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is getting ready for a major push against the occupation. In his first public address in months, the scion of one of Iraq's most important religious families called for an immediate end to U.S. occupation.

"I demand several things," the black-robed cleric told a press conference in the holy city of Najaf, "including punishing Saddam and calling on the Iraqi government, religious movements, and political factions to work hard to kick out the occupier. I want the immediate withdrawal of the occupation forces."

While Sadr has issued similar statements over the course of the two-year foreign occupation of his country, the timing of Monday's press conference was important, as it came just a day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with the country's newly elected Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

During the campaign, Jaafari and his Muslim cohorts had pledged to demand a timeline for U.S. withdrawal for Iraq. Indeed, as far back as May 2003, Shi'ite leader Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim (since assassinated) had given a fiery speech to his congregation:

"Do the Americans accept it if the English govern their country, even though they share a similar culture? How can we accept a foreign government whose language is different than ours, whose skin is different than ours? Our brothers, we will fight and fight so that the government we have is independent, that it is Iraqi."

Now that they're in power, however, the Shi'ite slate has been making more accommodating sounds toward Washington. At a press conference with Rice, Jaafari didn't flinch when Rice again rebuffed efforts to put a timeline on ending the occupation.

Never mind the fact that nearly everyone in Iraq wants the U.S. military to start withdrawing its 150,000 troops as soon as possible.

Enter Moqtada al-Sadr. The young cleric is perceived by many in the country as a reckless fundamentalist, but he nonetheless enjoys wide support in Iraq because he is one of the few politicians to stand up strongly against the occupation of his country. In addition, he gains credibility from the fact that his father and uncle – both grand ayatollahs – were killed for fomenting rebellion against Saddam's regime.

On April 9th, on the second anniversary of Saddam's ouster, as many as 100,000 demonstrators took to the streets of Baghdad demanding America leave their country. Then, this past Friday, movement leader Sheik Aws al-Khafaji read a sermon by Sadr in which he threatened to remilitarize his Mahdi militia, which clashed with U.S. troops for months before clerical authorities brokered a U.S. withdrawal from Najaf.

"If you leave us in peace, we will leave you in peace. You should be aware of the fact that the Mahdi Army is still alive and has its finger on the trigger," AFP quotes Sheik Aws reading.

The new Iraqi government would be wise to listen to Sadr's rumblings. Going back on promises to end the unpopular U.S. occupation would certainly delegitimize the new elected Iraqi government and make a firebrand fundamentalist like Moqtada al-Sadr much more popular.

[ShahLatif]

I have a feeling if Sadr remilitarizes his 'jaish',  it's going to be shia vs shia

[SaraMakoSurname]

^That's exactly what's goning to happen bro.. infact it's already happening, just ask the Iraqis who visited iraq during those 'Muqtada'
days..

And also, how can we just stand and stare when we see hundreds of shia getting slaughtered? And don't come up telling me oh 'Americans this, americans that'...its those filthy wahabi arabic terrorists that are spilling blood everywhere. I mean you get them confessing on Iraqi TV, yet people still go on and on saying that it's the 'Americans' who are killing the shia.. and yes that has happened and is happening now, but those main animals are the filthy wahabis ruining my country and my people.

Islam gives us the right for revenge, so why do we have to make 'unity' when their own scholars are issuing fatwa's stating that killing a shia guy would get you 72 virgins in heaven or whatever? This is atrocious and I hate it when poeple start covering up for those wahabi pigs.

[Frodo]

SaraMakoSurname, on May 20 2005, 11:21 AM, said:

^That's exactly what's goning to happen bro.. infact it's already happening, just ask the Iraqis who visited iraq during those 'Muqtada'
days..

And also, how can we just stand and stare when we see hundreds of shia getting slaughtered? And don't come up telling me oh 'Americans this, americans that'...its those filthy wahabi arabic terrorists that are spilling blood everywhere. I mean you get them confessing on Iraqi TV, yet people still go on and on saying that it's the 'Americans' who are killing the shia.. and yes that has happened and is happening now, but those main animals are the filthy wahabis ruining my country and my people.

Islam gives us the right for revenge, so why do we have to make 'unity' when their own scholars are issuing fatwa's stating that killing a shia guy would get you 72 virgins in heaven or whatever? This is atrocious and I hate it when poeple start covering up for those wahabi pigs.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Revenge is only appropriate if and when it is controlled. It is only allowed by proper methods and given its proper circumstances and conditions. You cant expect the Shias to go on a killing spree of Sunnis in the name of "revenge". I mean the perpetrators should be caught and dealt with in an appropriate manner (through the law, and humanely, if that's not a sin to say). But frankly, as a Shia Iraqi myself with a father in Iraq currently teaching at Baghdad University, I must point out that to speak of revenge or anything of that nature is extremely dangerous. The Shias could have extracted oceans of blood of revenge from the Sunni Iraqi population for the tens of years of oppression and barbaric toture that they received from certain selected persons of that population. Yet because the religious leaders understand that this does not constitute a fair understanding and interpretation of "justice", since many innocent Sunnis will definitely get caught in the cross-fire, they have urged time and again restraint and patience and to work through things through the right channels and by the proper methods. Otherwise if the Shias collectively were given the green-light to unleash hell, so to speak, and go on crazed adventures for "revenge", the situation will turn into an unadulterated version of dog-eat-dog, with massacres and genocide and crimes against humanity being perpetrated on a level perhaps never seen before anywhere else.

Edited by Frodo, 20 May 2005 - 04:38 PM.

[Thaqalain]

I think Americans and Wahabis are get tired of provoking shia population to involve in a mad civil war,so we see recent trend of now sunnis being slaughterd on Baghdad streets.This is done to show that Sunnis are being crushed under a shia dominant state.
This sectarian strife can be crushed only by a sincere milliatary general.If law is not implemented by regime , public will take law in their hands to enforce it in a style which suit them,this was happened in Pakistan , too.We lost 1 part in 1970's, another part Kashmir is going to break away from Pak/Ind hands sooner.Rest of Pakistan will survive till our army ruling over masses by force.
Today or tomorrow I see fragmentation of Iraq into 3 pieces,if we will not learn from history.
We should unite our states within united Iraq otherwise United States will divide our united states.

Edited by Thaqalain, 20 May 2005 - 08:25 PM.

[satyaban]

Instead of these gunmen serving this cleric as part of a cult of personality why don't they join the Iraqi army. If there is killin to be done let the Army do it.

Peace