EFL
Until now, interactions between the Americans and the Iraqis in Najaf have been calm, free of the random violence rampant in the country’s Sunni heartland.
Why Moktada isn’t wearing an orange jumpsuit by now is beyond me. Yeah, I know. There’d be a big uprising. But you know what? He’s already instigating a big uprising. Pay the bill now, or pay it later with interest. I don’t think the people who hang out with al Sadr really care about the case that we’re no doubt putting together against him right now.
But a sudden storm erupted on Saturday after Moktada al-Sadr, the scion of a clan of beloved clerics and the most vocal supporter of Iranian-style theocracy in Iraq, asserted that American forces were encircling his home. They were bent on arresting him, his aides announced, after an incendiary sermon on Friday in which he rejected the American-appointed Governing Council and called for the formation of an Islamic army. |