Why is the fiercely anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr who, until 2008 actually ordered the killing of US troops and others, even part of mainstream politics and how did he become a key ally to PM Maliki?
These and other perplexing questions only Sadr can answer, and I am betting he won't come clean anytime soon.
From Reuters/Yahoo August 7 by Aseel Kami
U.S. military trainers could be targets: Iraq's Sadr
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's fiercely anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has warned that U.S. military trainers will be targets if they stay in the country beyond a year-end deadline for American troops to leave.
The statement from Sadr, whose Mehdi Army militia fought U.S. troops until 2008, follows a deal by Iraqi leaders to allow Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to negotiate with the United States on whether to keep trainers in Iraq after the deadline.
Sadr followers have sent mixed messages on that, but any deal to keep U.S. troops in Iraq, even as trainers, remains a sensitive issue in Baghdad and Washington eight years after the U.S. invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
"A government which agrees for them to stay, even for training, is a weak government."
Sadr's Mehdi Army militia has for the most part demobilized, but U.S. officials say Sadrist splinter groups have continued to attack U.S. troops still stationed in Iraq.
Violence in Iraq has eased sharply since sectarian bloodshed peaked four years ago, but bombings and assassinations are still carried out almost daily by Sunni Islamists, some tied to al Qaeda, and by Shi'ite militas the U.S. government says are backed by Iran.
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