Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr will consult senior religious leaders and disband his Mehdi Army militia if they instruct him to, a senior aide said on Monday. The surprise announcement was the first time Sadr has proposed dissolving the Mehdi Army, one of the principle actors in Iraq’s five-year-old conflict.
A suicide bomber drove a minibus into a crowded market in Iraq’s Shi’ite city of Kufa on Tuesday, killing 16 people, officials said, in the latest in a spate of sectarian attacks blamed on al-Qaeda Sunni militants. Witnesses said the bomber drove a minibus into an open-air market packed with morning shoppers in central Kufa, near the holy Shi’ite city of Najaf.
Baghdad was under curfew on Monday, the fourth anniversary of the fall of the capital to United States forces, as Iraqis gathered in the city of Najaf for a big anti-US protest called by fiery cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. ”No, no, to the occupation; no, no to America,” thousands of marching Iraqis chanted as they marched through the southern city.
A suicide bomber pulled his minivan into a busy market on Tuesday, lured labourers onboard with the promise of jobs and then blew himself up, killing at least 59 people in one the bloodiest attacks in Iraq this year. The blast in the Shi’ite city of Kufa wounded 132 people and sparked clashes between police and angry protesters.