Iraq cleric to followers: Stop attacking US troops

[bobby_cahill]

BAGHDAD (AP) — An anti-American cleric is urging his followers to stop attacking U.S. troops in Iraq so that their withdrawal from the country isn't slowed down, a call meant to ramp up pressure on Baghdad's political leaders who are considering asking some American forces to stay.

In a statement posted on his website, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr told his militias to halt attacks against U.S. forces till the withdrawal is finished at the end of the year as required under a security agreement between Washington and Baghdad.

"Out of my desire to complete Iraq's independence and to finish the withdrawal of the occupation forces from our holy lands, I am obliged to halt military operations of the honest Iraqi resistance until the withdrawal of the occupation forces is complete," al-Sadr said in the statement, posted late Saturday. Sadrist lawmaker Mushraq Naji confirmed the statement on Sunday.

However, al-Sadr warned that "if the withdrawal doesn't happen ... the military operations will be resumed in a new and tougher way."

The statement followed last week's notice by U.S. officials in Baghdad, announcing the start of the withdrawal.

There are currently about 45,000 U.S. forces in Iraq.

However, U.S. and Iraqi leaders are currently weighing whether some American troops should remain past the Dec. 31 deadline as Baghdad continues to struggle with instability and burgeoning influence from neighboring Iran. Last month, Iraqi leaders began negotiating with U.S. officials in Baghdad to keep at least several thousand troops in Iraq to continue training the nation's shaky security forces.

Officials in Washington say President Barack Obama is willing to keep between 3,000 and 10,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. But with fewer than four months before the final deadline, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and parliament still have not indicated how many U.S. troops Iraq might need, how long they would stay, or exactly what they would be doing.

After more than eight years of war, many weary Iraqis are ready to see U.S. troops go, and staunchly defend their national sovereignty against an American force they see as occupiers. Al-Sadr's followers vehemently oppose a continued U.S. military presence in Iraq, and walked out of last month's meeting where political leaders decided to open the talks on having American troops stay.

"Our goal has been always to fight the occupiers because they are still in our country," Naji said Sunday.

Still, other Iraqi officials privately say they want American troops to continue training the nation's security forces for months, if not years, to come. The president of Iraq's northern Kurdish region this week pleaded for U.S. forces to stay to ward off threats of renewed sectarian violence.

Many Iraqis — both Sunnis and Shiites — share that fear.

"As for me, and the sheiks of Nasiriyah, we want the U.S. Army to stay," Sheik Manshad al-Ghezi of the southern Shiite city of Nasiriyah said in a recent interview. "We are afraid of civil war. All the parties and groups in Iraq are armed and the Iraqi Army cannot manage to bring security to Iraq and stop the fighting among these parties."

[Luigi1]

Iran financed & backed Al Sadr will lose. Iran & Al Sadr can talk all they want. Their days are numbered if we are pushed into a corner. The USA & EU have too much invested in Iraq to allow it to slip back into civil war or ethnic cleansing. Iraq will move forward & be allowed to succeed at all costs.

[R2d2dc]

Well as long as they are unwilling to come together as one the problems will continue. They are groups of people that just don't seem to be able to co-exist. This is not new or news to anyone, it just seems that the leaderships ability to have the country come together and be a nation is a tough one. There are centuries of conflict and harboring hatreds working behind the scenes here, and other countries in the region take full advantage of it. Just my opinion. On a lighter side I'd like to send a bottle of Coke in to see what might happen, hey it works in commercials!

R2

[82Corp.]

Iran financed & backed Al Sadr will lose. Iran & Al Sadr can talk all they want. Their days are numbered if we are pushed into a corner. The USA & EU have too much invested in Iraq to allow it to slip back into civil war or ethnic cleansing. Iraq will move forward & be allowed to succeed at all costs.

Correct statement!

[Shick]

Al Sadr just maybe working for Iran, look at it this way. If the American forces leave right now who has more to gain, with a country as rich in oil as Iraq? The people of Iraq aren't blind the fighting between the Shiites and Sunni's will become a battle for control of the country's religious group and bloody this will be, because of the hatred that build up from family members being killed by the other side. This will never cease, there is no love between the two. Sit on a branch . . . time will tell!

[k98nights]

URGENT: Shiite Leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, orders halt of military operations against U.S. Forces in Iraq

9/11/2011 8:59 AM

NAJAF / Aswat al-Iraq: The Leader of the Shiite al-Sadr Trend, Muqtada al-Sadr, has ordered the stoppage of military operations against the U.S.

forces in Iraq till their complete withdrawal from the country by the end of this year, according to a statement by his office on Saturday.

“Stemming from my keenness for the stability of Iraq and the withdrawal of the American invasion forces from our sacred lands, I find it necessary to stop all the military operations by the honest Iraqi resistance till the complete withdrawal of those forces,” the statement quoted Sadr as saying.

The statement, copy of which landed in Aswat al-Iraq news agency, said that “in the event of the withdrawal of the last American soldier from Iraq, the the military operations would be stopped till an unlimited time, or else if something opposite to that would occur, the military operations would be restored with a new and powerful course.”

http://en.aswataliraq.info/Default1.aspx?page=article_page&id=144767&l=1