Sadr calls for followers to disengage in Basra.

[SirNitram]

Link

NAJAF, Iraq, March 30 (Reuters) - Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called on his armed followers on Sunday to leave the streets and stop battling government forces in Basra and other southern towns.

"Because of the religious responsibility, and to stop Iraqi blood being shed, and to maintain the unity of Iraq and to put an end to this sedition that the occupiers and their followers want to spread among the Iraqi people, we call for an end to armed appearances in Basra and all other provinces," Sadr said in a statement given to journalists by his aides.

"Anyone carrying a weapon and targeting government institutions will not be one of us."

Iraqi government troops have been battling fighters loyal to Sadr in Basra for six days. The fighting has spread to other towns in southern Iraq and neighbourhoods of Baghdad, exposing a deep rift with Iraq's majority Shi'ite community.

In his statement Sadr denied that his followers possessed heavy weapons. He said the government should stop large-scale arrests of his followers and implement an amnesty to free prisoners held in detention.

Entirely too savvy for the bastard. Once American air power got involved, he disengages; he knows it can crush his forces flat, and if he's seen as insisting on fighting, the PR damage from the bombings will hit him.

[frigidmagi]

Al-Sadr has made a history of being entirely to clever by half since the moment he first managed to avoid being punished for leading an uprising in 2003/04. The fucker has to go. We should have knocked him off 5 bloody years ago and have no one to blame but ourselves for the fact that he is a recurring problem in stabilizing and securing Iraq.

Like I've been saying, the fucker has to die.

[SirNitram]

Right now, he's riding far too high. Maliki started with a 72 hour deadline for all weapons. Because he got utterly humiliated in his joint Iraqi-American op to put down Sadr, he's extended it by I think weeks and changed it to heavy weapons for cash.

[frigidmagi]

Maliki took a gamble that the part of the Iraqi Army he judged relible was up to the task of digging out a dug in, determined, well armed native force out of a city. That's a tough task even for professional armies with fully integrated support and commands. History is littered with examples of armies who couldn't do it. The Iraqi troops just weren't ready.

On the flip side given how likely it is that US troops will be packing up and leaving sometime next year, this was really the only time Maliki could take the gamble, fail and survive. Right now the US forces are the only think keeping Sadr from going for the whole ball of cheese I think. But he knows he can wait and we'll be gone sooner or later. To fucking clever by half, he needs to go.

The weapon deadline has been changed to April 18th.