NAJAF – Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr burnished his anti-US credentials on Saturday by urging supporters to resist all occupiers of Iraq and oppose the United States, but not necessarily with arms.”We are still fighters,” said Sadr, who returned to Iraq on Wednesday after years
of self-imposed exile in Iran, speaking for the first time in public since his homecoming in the holy Shi’ite city of Najaf, 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad.
The one-time firebrand, whose Mehdi Army militia fought US troops and
was blamed for much of the sectarian slaughter that followed the 2003 US-led invasion, asked his followers to give Iraq’s new government a chance.
