Sadrists turnout in force for anti-US demonstration

Sadrists turnout in force for anti-US demonstration
By Steve Negus,Iraq correspondent
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: April 10 2007 03:00 | Last updated: April 10 2007 03:00


Tens of thousands of Iraqi Shia protesters gathered in the holy city of Najaf yesterday to demand the withdrawal of US forces on the fourth anniversary of the US capture of Baghdad.

The demonstration, the largest in recent months, represented a show of force by the radical Sadrist movement, which has kept a comparatively low profile since the US troop surge in Iraq began in February. The protesters had been bussed in from across the Shia south of the country and waving red, white and black Iraqi flags they filled the 7km highway between the town, which houses much of the Shia clerical establishment, and its sister city of Kufa.

Yesterday's demonstration came at a particularly critical time for a force caught between militant roots and aspirations to join the Shia political mainstream.

Two months ago, much of the Sadrist leadership, including its leader Moqtada al-Sadr, went into hiding to avoid coming into confrontation with Iraqi and US troops carrying out a massive government crackdown. The movement's Mahdi Army militia - blamed for much of the sectarian violence that had left tens of thousands dead in and around Baghdad in the previous 12 months - were told to keep off the streets.

However, much of the movement's rank and file have been chafing under instructions from the leadership not to stage attacks against the US and Iraqi troops pushing into their strongholds, a crisis that was probably compounded by Mr Sadr's own absence from the political scene.

This weekend, fighting broke out in the southern city of Diwaniya between Sadrist militiamen and Iraqi troops backed by American airpower.

Although the death toll appears to have been fairly light, it placed Mr Sadr in an awkward political position. He draws much of his appeal from having been the standard-bearer of anti-occupation militancy among the Shia in the first 18 months after the 2003 US-led invasion.

Since then, however, he appears to have decided that armed confrontation is too risky a strategy, and is deepening his ties with other Shia parties and allowing his followers to run in parliamentary elections.

Mr Sadr issued a statement in the wake of the Diwaniya fighting calling on his fighters not to attack Iraqi government troops but instead to "unify" efforts against the American "arch-enemy", which may be difficult in practice when US and Iraqi forces stage joint operations.

The Sadrists rose to power in the aftermath of April 9 2003, leading Shia opposition to both the Saddam Hussein regime and the US forces that overthrew it. However, the Sadrists' appeal has traditionally been not so much their ideological consistency but their tremendous energy as activists and their huge support base among the Shia poor - strengths that demonstrations like yesterday's are designed to reinforce.