Iraq: Moqtada al-Sadr warns of 'war' if US presence extended

Iraq: Moqtada al-Sadr warns of ‘war’ if US presence extended

18 August, 2011 09:56

Iraq: Moqtada al-Sadr warns of ‘war’ if US presence extended

A leading anti-US Shiite cleric Sayyed Moqtada al-Sadr warned of “war” if US forces stayed in Iraq beyond a year-end deadline for their withdrawal, in a brief statement viewed on Wednesday.

Moqtada al-Sadr did not give any further details in the written reply to a follower’s question, released by his office in the holy Shiite city of Najaf.

Asked whether or not he would negotiate directly or indirectly with US forces over a security training mission to last beyond the end of this year, the cleric replied simply: “No, there will be war.”

The statement was at least the fourth message in the past two weeks from Sadr calling for American forces to leave the country, following an August 3 announcement by Iraqi political leaders that they would open talks with Washington over a training mission.

On August 6, he warned that a post-2011 US presence “should be resisted through military means”.

About 47,000 US troops are still stationed in Iraq, all of whom must leave by the end of the year under the terms of a 2008 bilateral security pact, which would remain in force if a training deal is not agreed.

US and Iraqi military officials assess Iraq’s security forces capable of maintaining internal security, but say the country is lacking in terms of capacity to defend its borders, airspace and territorial waters.

Sadr’s movement has 40 deputies in parliament and five ministers in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s national unity government.

And before it was disbanded in 2008, Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia numbered some 60,000 fighters with fierce loyalty to the cleric. It fought bloody battles with the US army in the years following the 2003 invasion which ousted Saddam Hussein.