Iraq's Sadr expected to extend truce-sources

[sabra]

Source: Reuters

BAGHDAD, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Powerful Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is expected to extend a six-month truce by his militia, two officials in his movement said on Thursday, a move Washington says is important for maintaining security gains.

They said Sadr had issued a declaration to preachers to be read during midday prayers on Friday at mosques affiliated with the cleric, whose militia was blamed for fuelling a cycle of sectarian violence with minority Sunni Muslims in 2006 and 2007.

"The general idea is that there will be an extension," said one senior official in Sadr's movement in Baghdad, who declined to go into detail on the declaration.

"Sayed (Sadr) has distributed sealed envelopes to the imams of the mosques... They cannot be opened before tomorrow," he said.

...

Many Mehdi Army members and Sadrist political leaders say they want to end the truce, accusing Iraqi security forces of exploiting it to detain activists, especially in southern Iraq, where rival Shi'ite factions are locked in a struggle for power.

...

"When Moqtada al Sadr called a ceasefire, a large number of those Shi'ite extremists ... stopped shooting at us," Major-General Rick Lynch, who commands 20,000 U.S. troops south of Baghdad, told Reuters in an interview last week.

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L21815536.htm

[underpants]

1. Wow that didn't take long. They got the payment to him in a hurry

Nice going there W.

[acmavm]

6. Yeah. The check must have cleared.

[Hugabear]

2. He's just letting everyone know who is REALLY behind the "calm" in Iraq

We've known all along this had practically nothing to do with the "surge". The idea that a few thousand extra American troops could calm religious and ethnic tensions was laughable.

[Bigmack]

3. Why doesn't somebody say in the MSM...

.. that the only person who is holding the (relative) peace together in Iraq is a scary-looking cleric who is just gathering money and weapons and waiting for his opportunity to take over.

Want a scary scenario? If Sadr gets clipped by somebody - anybody - his militia will go apeshit. So much for the success of the "surge".

[ohio2007]

4. so much drama waiting for his "Tet offensive" moment.

It'll be up to the Iraqi's to smack him down.

[wtmusic]

5. Sadr has shown more integrity and more leadership

than anyone in that hellhole, American or Iraqi.

When Sadr takes over (and he will) we will see Iraq become "Iran-Lite", which is the best of all possible outcomes. If we make the stupid and arrogant mistake of offing him, a horrific struggle will ensue, millions will die, and in the end Iraq will be annexed by Iran, which has a standing army of half a million waiting to march over the border.