General David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is a "leader of an important and legitimate political movement," urging the Iraqi government, in whose selection Sadr was a kingmaker, to recognize and deal with it.
"I think the way, the best way to characterize Muqtada al-Sadr is that he is the face and the leadership of a very important and legitimate political movement in Iraq," he said."
Muqtada, the leader of the Sadrist movement, is the son of Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, who was assassinated by the former Iraqi regime's intelligence agencies in early 1999. The elder Sadr was
Marja al-Taqlid, source of emulation, for Shiite Muslims. Muqtada is also the leader of
Jaysh al-Mahdi, or the Mahdi Army, militias, which he founded in July 2003 as a military wing for his movement.
"Sadr's movement is part of the alliance that elected the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki," Petraeus said during a joint press conference he held in Washington on Thursday with U.S. ambassador in Iraq Ryan Crocker.
Bookmarks