Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Saturday threatened an “open war” against the Iraqi government unless it halted a crackdown by Iraqi and U.S. security forces on his followers.
The specter of a full-scale uprising by Sadr sharply raises the stakes in his confrontation with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has threatened to ban the anti-American cleric’s movement from political life unless he disbands his militia.
A rebellion by Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia — which has tens of thousands of fighters — could abruptly end a period of lower violence at a time when U.S. forces are starting to leave Iraq.
“I’m giving the last warning and the last word to the Iraqi government — either it comes to its senses and takes the path of peace … or it will be (seen as) the same as the previous government,” Sadr said, referring to Saddam Hussein’s fallen regime, without elaborating.
“If they don’t come to their senses and curb the infiltrated militias, then we will declare an open war until liberation.”
Sadr’s movement accuses other Shi’ite parties of getting their militias into the Iraqi security forces, especially in southern Shi’ite Iraq where various factions are competing for influence in a region home to most of Iraq’s oil output… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Reuters>
Sadr’s complaint is justified. Were he to disband the Mahdi Army, he would be the only player in the country without a militia. He enjoys enough support that his faction could become the leading Shiite in the nation after the provincial elections. This is what Maliki and his neocon handlers fear. In their attempt to unseat him before those elections, they are running a severe risk plunging that nation into all-out civil war with US troops and innocent civilians caught in the middle. McBoomBoom will give us 100 years of this.
