Closure of Shiite Weekly Newspaper Likely to Compound US Security Worries

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The U.S. closure of the weekly newspaper of a zealously anti-American Shiite cleric has invigorated the movement and its opposition to the American-led occupation.

With the United States planning to surrender political power to Iraqis by the end of June, Washington can little afford a new front in the increasingly violent battle to pacify the country. But closing the newspaper, Al-Hawza, seems to have opened one.

Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's supporters are well-organized and led by young, motivated clerics whose respect for their 30-year-old leader arises largely from the reverence accorded his late father, a senior cleric gunned down in 1999 by suspected agents of Saddam Hussein's regime.

The movement's social services and appeal as a powerful forum for Shiites in Baghdad's poor neighborhoods and Iraq's southern cities have generated discipline and loyalty among supporters.

more