KUFA, Iraq, 26 May 2007 — Moqtada Sadr made a dramatic return to Iraqi politics yesterday, calling for national unity and the withdrawal of US troops in his first speech in seven months as the US military announced the deaths of six more US soldiers.

The 33-year-old Shiite leader arrived at the main mosque in the central town of Kufa to the cheers of more than 1,000 supporters.

“No, no to the unjust! No, no to America! No, no to colonialism! No, no to Israel! No, no to Satan,” he declared in his address, the first since reports from US commanders and Iraqi officials that he had fled to Iran.

Word of Sadr’s return spread across the country, with Shiite mosques across Baghdad erupting in cheers at the start of Friday prayers.

“I want to renew our demand for the departure of the occupation,” he said, warning the Iraqi government that his supporters and allies have enough votes in Parliament to block any renewal of the American military mandate.

“I say to our Sunni brothers in Iraq that we are brothers and the occupier shall not divide us. They are welcome and we are ready to cooperate with them in all fields. This is my hand I stretch toward them,” he said.

Sadr had not been seen at the mosque since last October, and in January US and Iraqi officials said he had gone to Iran ahead of a massive security operation aimed at quelling sectarian violence.

“Now that he’s back from four months in Iran, we hope he’ll play a useful and positive role in the development of Iraq,” said White House national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe, reacting to news of the speech.

Sadr’s supporters always insisted that he had stayed in Kufa, a suburb of Najaf 140 km south of Baghdad.

During his absence, Sadr loyalists quit Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki’s government and now claim to have recruited 148 members of Iraq’s 275-member Parliament to support a law demanding the expulsion of US forces.

Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia has also clashed with Iraqi and US security forces, who have carried out raids to round up death squad leaders and arms smugglers connected to the large and loosely organized movement.

Yesterday, Sadr blamed clashes between the Mahdi Army and Iraqi forces on the “occupier” and called on his supporters to refrain from fighting the Iraqi Army and police.

But just hours after Sadr’s reappearance, the Mahdi Army’s commander in the southern city of Basra was shot dead while resisting arrest by Iraqi special forces working with British troops, a British military spokesman said.

The US military announced the deaths of six more soldiers in Iraq, hours after US President George W. Bush predicted a bloody summer lay ahead. Five of the soldiers died Thursday while another was killed Tuesday by a roadside bomb in Tikrit, 175 km north of Baghdad.

April was the worst month this year for the US military since the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003, with 104 soldiers killed. About 90 have been killed in May so far.