Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Saturday threatened an ”open war” against the Iraqi government unless it halted a crackdown by Iraqi and United States security forces on his followers. The spectre of a full-scale uprising by Sadr sharply raises the stakes in his confrontation with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Iraq’s prime minister has raised the stakes in his showdown with followers of Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, saying in an interview broadcast on Monday they would be barred from elections unless their militia disbanded. The comments followed raids on Sunday by security forces into the cleric’s Baghdad stronghold, the slum of Sadr City.