Secret U.S. Plot to Kill Influential Iraqi Cleric (Muqtada al-Sadr) Exposed

[babylonsister]

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/52160/

Secret U.S. Plot to Kill Influential Iraqi Cleric Exposed
By Patrick Cockburn, Independent UK. Posted May 22, 2007.

Occupation forces offered peace talks to nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and then tried to arrest or assassinate him under cover of negotiations.



The US Army tried to kill or capture Muqtada al-Sadr, the widely revered Shia cleric, after luring him to peace negotiations at a house in the holy city of Najaf, which it then attacked, according to a senior Iraqi government official.

The revelation of this extraordinary plot, which would probably have provoked an uprising by outraged Shia if it had succeeded, has left a legacy of bitter distrust in the mind of Mr Sadr for which the US and its allies in Iraq may still be paying. "I believe that particular incident made Muqtada lose any confidence or trust in the coalition and made him really wild," the Iraqi National Security Adviser Dr Mowaffaq Rubai'e told The Independent in an interview. It is not known who gave the orders for the attempt on Mr Sadr but it is one of a series of ill-considered and politically explosive US actions in Iraq since the invasion. In January this year a US helicopter assault team tried to kidnap two senior Iranian security officials on an official visit to the Iraqi President. Earlier examples of highly provocative actions carried out by the US with little thought for the consequences include the dissolution of the Iraqi army and the Baath party.

The attempted assassination or abduction took place two-and-a-half years ago in August 2004 when Mr Sadr and his Mehdi Army militiamen were besieged by US Marines in Najaf, south of Baghdad.

Dr Rubai'e believes that his mediation efforts - about which he had given the US embassy, the American military command and the Iraqi government in Baghdad full details - were used as an elaborate set-up to entice the Shia leader to a place where he could be trapped.

Mr Sadr emerged as the leader of the Sadrist movement in Baghdad at the time of the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. It had been founded by his father, also a cleric, who had confronted Saddam's regime in the 1990s and had been murdered by his agents in 1999. Its blend of nationalism, religion and populism proved highly attractive to Iraqi Shia, particularly to the very poor.

Although Mr Sadr escaped with his life at the last moment, the incident helps explain why he disappeared from view in Iraq when President George Bush stepped up confrontation with him and his Mehdi Army militia in January.

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[Buzz Clik]

1. Muqtada al-Sadr is a murdering bastard.

Few will weep at his death. However, let's leave it to the Iraqis to take care of him.

[damntexdem]

3. And luring someone to negotiations in order to assassinate him cannot be justified, no matter what.

This shows the Bushistas to be murdering bastards.

[Buzz Clik]

4. Sorry, but I have no feelings of sorrow for him.

Despite my great animosity toward BushCo, I cannot feel anything but abject hostility for a man who slaughters his own people and does the same to ours.

If Muqtada al-Sadr wants to be treated like a human being, he's going to have to start acting like one.

[acmavm]

2. Sounds normal for this crew. Remember bush**, the guy who was gonna

bring integrity back into government?

Everything connected with this administration and with their war is tainted by duplicity and treason.