<snip>
The U.S. military has warned that such bombings were intended to provoke retaliatory violence by Shiite militias, whose members have largely complied with political pressure to avoid confrontations with Americans during the U.S. troop buildup.
The radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr launched a strong attack earlier Saturday on President Bush, calling him the "greatest evil" for refusing to withdraw American troops from Iraq.
Al-Sadr's statement was read during a parliament session by his cousin, Liqaa al-Yassin, after Congress ordered U.S. troops to begin leaving Iraq by Oct. 1. Bush pledged to veto the measure and neither the House nor the Senate had enough votes to override him.
"Here are the Democrats calling you to withdraw or even set a timetable and you are not responding," al-Sadr's statement said. "It is not only them who are calling for this but also Republicans, to whom you belong."
"If you are ignoring your friends and partners, then it is no wonder that you ignore the international and Iraqi points of view," he added.Al-Sadr led two armed uprisings against U.S. forces in 2004, and his Mahdi militia is believed responsible for much of Iraq's sectarian killing. The U.S. military says he has fled to Iran, although his followers insist he is hiding in Iraq.
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Link:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=HOMEThis is gonna get worse and worse.
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