BAGHDAD, 8 July 2007 — Iraq’s Shiite Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki yesterday demanded the movement loyal to fiery cleric Moqtada Sadr take a clear stance on “terrorism” being committed by elements linked to the group. Maliki used unusually tough language following recent unrest in southern Shiite cities where Sadr’s Mehdi Army has clashed with Iraqi and US security forces.
“We hear from officials in the Sadr movement that they’re against the use of weapons and condemn those who do (use them),” Maliki told reporters. “The leadership of the movement must take clear and decisive decisions so they do not carry the responsibility of those who act in their name,” he added.
Maliki said that Baathists and gangs in one of his harshest criticism of the group that helped him come to power have infiltrated the movement. Despite being strong allies in the past, tension has been rising between Maliki and the Sadrists recently and culminated in April when six ministers loyal to Sadr quit the Cabinet to protest what Sadr said was the government’s incompetence and refusal to call for a US troop withdrawal timeline.
Fighting between the Mehdi Army and Iraqi security forces has killed dozens of people in recent weeks in the relatively calm southern cities of Nassiriya, Diwaniya and Samawa. Sadr, who has great appeal among Iraq’s Shiite masses, was influential in Maliki’s rise to power more than a year ago. But ties appear to have cooled.
Six ministers loyal to Sadr quit the government in April over Maliki’s refusal to set a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. Sadr’s parliamentary bloc is also boycotting the legislature in protest at the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine last month in the city of Samarra.
Sadr’s militia was blamed for much of the sectarian violence that has killed thousands of Iraqis in the past two years, and US troops have been launching raids against the militia, which the Americans accuse of having links with Iran.
“We hear the statements of officials in the Sadrist movement in which they say that they are against the use of weapons and condemn those who carry arms. This puts us in front of a fact that we should courageously face,” Maliki said, according to a statement from his office.
“These are people who have joined the Sadrist movement to take it as a cover and they are Saddamists, Baathists and gangs for theft and looting. They are taking advantage of the name,” Maliki said after a meeting with President Jalal Talabani.
Maliki called “the leaders of the Sadrist movement to take decisive and clear decisions so that they don’t bear responsibility for those who use the name (of the organization) for killings and acts of terrorism.”
