Muqtada Sadr

Iraqi religious and political leaders in Najaf agreed late Tuesday on how to end the crisis gripping the city, while a U.S. general said he might recruit Shiite Muslim militiamen now fighting U.S. soldiers for a security force there. The accord was hammered out between about three dozen moderates and emissaries of Muqtada Sadr, the militant Shiite cleric whose Al Mahdi army seized control of Najaf and other towns last month. Sadr's militiamen have been fighting U.S.

Several thousand U.S. and Iraqi troops launched an assault Thursday on forces loyal to radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr, encircling Najaf's Old City and Imam Ali Mosque compound, and later raiding Sadr's empty house a few miles to the east. Firefights erupted in the holy city's massive cemetery and in several neighborhoods outside the Old City as the military forces moved forward in a risky operation designed to surround and isolate Sadr and his Al Mahdi militia.

Tens of thousands of supporters of an anti-U.S. cleric burned an effigy of former President George W. Bush on Thursday and demanded that U.S. troops leave Iraq, in a rally marking the sixth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad to U.S. forces. Cleric Muqtada Sadr, whose Shiite Muslim militia fought U.S. troops intermittently until a cease-fire was declared last May, had called on Iraqis to turn out for the protest at Firdos Square, where a statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled on April 9, 2003.

Anti-American cleric Muqtada Sadr called on followers not to launch attacks on U.S. troops who are scheduled to leave Iraq by the end of the year, but warned that the violence would resume if they were not gone. Sadr's statement comes as U.S. and Iraqi officials are considering a plan to keep a small number of American troops in the country. More than 40,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq, but under an agreement between Iraq and the Bush administration in 2008, virtually all should leave by the end of 2011.

Wave after wave of Iraqi men stamped their feet and their hands swung high as they marched in time, dressed in the red, black and white of their nation's flag. Each group of 100 goose-stepped, carrying a white placard that read "God is great" and gave their unit's number. It was the most organized and disciplined display of street power in the eight-year existence of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr's grass-roots movement, drawing by some estimates 100,000 people into Baghdad's streets.

The Times frequently refers to the Shiite rebel Muqtada Sadr as a "radical cleric" (Aug. 9-10). If this because of his religious views or because of his resistance to the U.S. occupation of Iraq? In either case, it seems like a loaded reference. Kevin McKiernan Santa Barbara

Hundreds of Iraqi prisoners have launched a protest over dire prison conditions and systematic torture, including rape, lawmakers said. The prisoners have gone on a partial hunger strike to try to draw attention to their plight, said Ahmed Massoudi, a spokesman for supporters of Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr. "They are protesting because they have been systematically tortured and forced to confess to things they didn't do," Massoudi said.

A suicide bomber struck Shiite Muslim worshipers at a mosque run by followers of cleric Muqtada Sadr, killing at least 12 people a day after Iraqi lawmakers approved a security pact with the United States. The bomber blew himself up near the entrance of the main mosque in Musayyib, 40 miles south of Baghdad. In the capital, thousands of Sadr loyalists took to the streets of the Sadr City district to rally against the pact.

British troops withdrew Saturday from radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr's main office in the southern city of Basra a day after occupying the building and seizing an arms cache in fighting that killed three and wounded five, the British military said. Explosions and gunfire echoed before troops handed the office keys to local police, a military spokesman said. The move came hours after a Sadr aide threatened to order attacks on oil fields if troops did not leave the office.

Among all the candidates being touted for the prime minister's job in the next Iraqi government, one stands out for his near-total lack of political experience. Jaafar Sadr, 40, has spent his entire adult life as a student, in Baghdad, in Najaf, in the Iranian city of Qom, where he pursued religious studies under ayatollahs, and most recently in Beirut, where he is close to earning a bachelor's degree in sociology and anthropology. But Sadr's heritage puts him in the ranks of aristocracy, at least by Iraqi Shiite Muslim standards.