BAGHDAD: Loyalists of Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr said yesterday they wanted to keep fighting US forces even after their leader ordered a halt of armed actions by his feared Mehdi Army militia.
“I will follow the orders of Moqtada Sadr but I prefer to fight,” said Adnan Habib, a 22-year-old laborer who attended Friday prayers in Sadr City, Sadr’s bastion in eastern Baghdad.
A crowd of Sadr supporters scrambled to sign a document in their own blood, pledging to follow an earlier order issued by the cleric two weeks ago that called on them to continue the resistance against US forces.
Another Sadr supporter, Ali Abdel, a 19-year-old high school student, has been wanting to join the ranks of the Mehdi Army since the death of his mother in an attack targeting a police patrol a year ago.
When asked if he knows how to fight, Ali replied with a broad smile: “Which Iraqi does not know how to use a weapon?”
Sadr on Thursday ordered his 60,000-strong Mehdi Army militia to suspend its armed operations indefinitely, after two six-month periods in which he had ordered them to hold their fire. “The Mehdi Army suspension will be valid indefinitely and anyone who does not follow this order will not be considered a member of this group,” Sadr said in a statement issued by his office in Najaf.
The cleric said he wants to create a special unit of fighters who would continue the armed resistance against coalition forces, while the Mehdi Army in general would be transformed into a cultural and social organization.
Falah Hassan Shanshal, a lawmaker from the Sadr bloc in Parliament, said the cleric now wanted to serve society. “The philosophy of Moqtada Sadr is the same as that of his father Mohammed. Like his father, he wants to serve society and build society,” Shanshal said.
