The United States military fired rockets at a target near a hospital in eastern Baghdad on Saturday, wounding 20 people. No patients were wounded at the hospital in the Sadr City stronghold of Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, but 20 people at the scene of the blasts were wounded.
Followers of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr staged noisy protests on Thursday against a crackdown on Shi’ite fighters in Basra as the southern oil hub was rocked by a third straight day of fighting. Demonstrations were held in Sadr City and Kadhimiyah, two Baghdad bastions of Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia.
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/ 15 September 2007
The movement of radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said on Saturday it would withdraw from the Shi’ite bloc that leads the Iraqi government, in a new blow to the faltering political process. ”The Sadr bloc will hold a press conference in Najaf this evening [Saturday] where it will announce its decision to withdraw from the Shi’ite alliance,” Sadr spokesperson Saleh al-Obeidi said.