Shiite Leaders Call On Iraqis To Join Anti-American Militia To Actively Combat U.S. Troops

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/a-call-to-arms/2007/04/09/1175971016015.html

Looks like democracy to me...do we even know what democracy looks like from living in the States to begin with?

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April 10, 2007
LEADING Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has urged Iraqi security forces to unite with his militiamen against the American military in Diwaniya, an embattled southern city in Iraq where fighting has raged for three days.

The cleric's call was answered by thousands of Iraqis who flocked to the southern Shiite holy city of Najaf.

Sheikh Sadr, who blames the US-led invasion for Iraq's unrelenting violence, issued a statement on Sunday urging Iraqis to protest on the fourth anniversary of the day coalition forces swept into central Baghdad.

The US military says Sheikh Sadr, who is popular among Iraq's urban Shiite poor, is in neighbouring Iran. His aides say the cleric is in Iraq and have denied suggestions that he fled to Iran to escape a crackdown in Baghdad.

The Baghdad-Najaf road was packed with hundreds of vehicles yesterday crammed with passengers waving Iraqi flags and chanting religious and anti-US slogans.

"No, no to America … yes, yes Muqtada," they chanted as they converged on the holy city.

Sheikh Sadr's statement did not explicitly call for armed struggle against the Americans, but it still represented his most forceful condemnation of the US-led occupation since he went underground after the start of a crackdown in Baghdad nearly two months ago.

It came as the American military announced the deaths of 10 soldiers in five attacks over the weekend, the highest two-day total for American fatalities since the crackdown began on February 14. Five soldiers were wounded in the attacks.

Violence against Iraqis continued unabated on Sunday, with at least 43 people killed or found dead. Seventeen were killed and 26 wounded in a car bombing near a hospital and mosque in the insurgent enclave of Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad.

Sheikh Sadr's statement indicated that he might begin steering his militia, the Mahdi Army, towards more open confrontation with US forces.

Intense fighting broke out in Diwaniya when American and Iraqi soldiers isolated neighbourhoods there to search for militiamen.

Fighter jets hit militia positions on Saturday, and one police official said at least seven Iraqis had been killed and 15 wounded in the fighting. Residents reported American soldiers scampering across rooftops on Saturday evening.

"The strife that is taking place in Diwaniya was planned by the occupier to drag down the brothers and make them quarrel, fight and even kill each other," Sheikh Sadr said in a written statement.

"O my brothers in the Mahdi Army and my brothers in the security forces, stop fighting and killing because that is what our enemy and your enemy and even God's enemy hope for."

The American military said at least 39 people suspected of being militiamen had been detained during the weekend fighting, and soldiers had uncovered caches of particularly deadly explosives that American officials claim have come from Iran.

Brigadier Qassim Moussawi, spokesman for the US-Iraqi security crackdown in Baghdad, said a 24-hour vehicle ban was in force in the capital yesterday. "There will be protests marking the fourth anniversary (of occupation). We don't want to give the terrorists a chance to use this opportunity," Brigadier Moussawi said.

What largely began as a Sunni Arab insurgency against US and Iraqi forces after the 2003 invasion of Iraq has widened to include a sectarian conflict between the country's Shiites and Sunnis.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in the past year alone. More than 3270 US soldiers have been killed since the invasion.

NEW YORK TIMES, REUTERS

Sounds fair to you?

Lovely, just lovely.