Moqtada al-Sadr

Moqtada al-Sadr ( rear مقتدىالصدر Muqtadā aṣ-Ṣadr ) (born in 1973?), resident in Kufa, close to Najaf, qualified by its partisans of Sayyid (going down from the prophet), is the son of the Shiite Ayatollah Iraq IEN Mohammad Sadeq Al-Sadr assassinated under the mode of Saddam Hussein.

He asserts the title of Hodjatoleslam, that other concurrent authorities Shiite deny to him, in particular because of his young age.

Chief of a political movement and a Militia, the Armed with Mehdi, Sadr is in the Iraqi Shiite camp the principal figure of the opposition to the American presence in the country.

The Sadr movement in policy

Moqtada al-Sadr is with the head of a political movement appeared as of the first days of the American occupation of the Iraq. This movement is one of the main components of the coalition of government directed by Nouri Al-Maliki, with six ministers and 32 deputies out of 275.

The bastion of its movement is located at Sadr city, vast suburb in the North-East of Baghdad. He also enjoys a broad popularity in the Iraqi South. He holds a populist, religious and preserving speech, which benefits dissatisfaction with the population vis-a-vis the incapacity from the Iraqi government and the American occupant to restore the essential safety and public services.

Its principal standpoint relates to corruption, the return of safety and the departure of the foreign troops. He decided against the Iraqi Constitution subjected to referendum the October 15th 2005. He reproaches him in particular for introducing the Fédéralisme.

At the beginning of 2007, several chiefs of the Sadr movement were killed by the American Armée, and out of the hundreds of its stopped partisans.

April 15th, 2007, the political committee of the Sadr movement asked her ministers to resign following the refusal of the Prime Minister to ask for the immediate withdrawal of the American forces. In the obvious result, on September 15th, 2007, its party leaves the coalition supporting Prime Minister Al-Maliki.

The army of Mehdi

The Sadr movement has an armed wing, the Armée with Mehdi (or Mahdi, name of the twelfth Imam).

This militia faced the forces American twice, in April and August 2004.

She is shown by the American army as by many sunnites to constitute the majority of the death squads which make exactions against the sunnites. For this reason, Sadr is regarded by the the United States as one their principal enemies in Iraq, as well as the guerilla Sunnite.

Its manpower are difficult to estimate, the majority of its members being occasional. The American figures give a report on 30.000 men, but their number can be considerably increased. In the event of disorder, hundreds of thousands of partisans are likely to take the weapons.

Competitions between Shiites

Moqtada al-Sadr occupies a paramount place in an Iraqi Shiite landscape which is characterized by an intense competition. One of the objectives of this competition is the control of the product of the pilgrimages in the Holy Cities of Najaf and Kerbala, which amounts of tens of million dollars each year.

It is shown to have financed the murder of Abdoul-Majid Al-Khoei the April 10th 2003. It is the subject of a warrant for arrest launched by Iraqi justice in this file. However, the family Al-Khoei, which was close to the the United States, estimates that the baassists are responsible for this assassination.

Moqtada al-Sadr also maintains the relations tended with large the Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, more the high ranking authority Chiite in Iraq, based with Najaf. This last critic into private excesses of Sadr, but it seems too conscious of its popularity to dare to criticize it openly.

Relations with Iran

The bonds of Sadr with the Iran are discussed. The American army shows the army of Mehdi to be constant by the Iran. But the evidence of this support misses. And the islamologists explain that the Iraqi Chiisme answers the dynamic ones who are clean for him, independent in great part of the Iranian questions. Despite everything, Moqtada al-Sadr went on several occasions in Iran, and it posts an ideological proximity some with the doctrines of the Islamic Republic.

The 13 February 2007, several American media, quoting American military sources with Baghdad, indicated that Sadr had fled the Iraq for the Iran. This assertion was contradicted by its close relations. But a government spokesman Iraqi evoked a short stay with Teheran.

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