Antichrist Takes Control Of Tikrit (Rev 13)

The militias have been extensively deployed on the roads that lead to the center of the city.

World Bulletin / News Desk

Iraqi militia al-Hashid al-Shaabi took control of Tikrit in the northern Iraqi province of Saladin after defeating ISIL on Wednesday.

The national flag of Iraq was raised over the city alongside al-Hashid al-Shaabi’s flag.

Shiite militias have been extensively deployed on the roads that lead to the center of the city, with a particularly heavy presence on roads that lead to damaged government buildings.

Saraya al-Salam — a militia loyal to prominent Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr — are not in the city as they refused to participate in the Tikrit military operation, out of their opposition to the participation of the U.S.-led international coalition.

The devastated aftermath of the city showed the destruction caused by fierce clashes that took place between ISIL and the Iraqi national forces.

Black smoke still billows out from blown-up mines and improvised bombs.

Around 90 percent of Tikrit’s Sunni civilians fled the city before the clashes took place. According to local sources, civilians fearing Shiite militia attacks paid money to leave the city.

Tikrit’s operation was carried out quicker than expected and with minimum casualties, Colonel Hasan Ahmed, deputy director of Tikrit’s police told.

Salim al-Jabouri, speaker of the Iraqi parliament, said late Wednesday in a meeting with defense minister Khaled al-Obaid that the Tikrit victory should be followed by national reconciliation between all Iraqi people.

Antichrist Continues Battle For Tikrit (Revelation 13)

Battle for Tikrit Enters Second Week

March 08, 2015 2:02 PMLast updated on: March 08, 2015 3:25 PM

VOA News

Iraqi army soldiers and volunteers prepare to launch mortar shells and rockets against Islamic State militant positions outside Tikrit, March 4, 2015.

A week into the ground campaign for Tikrit, Iraqi forces and allied Shi’ite militias continue to clash with Islamic State group militants on the city’s outskirts in an attempt to regain territory one outlying town at a time.

The coalition is battling for al-Dour and Albu Ajil, where IS snipers are hampering efforts to clear the towns of the rebel extremists.

Thousands of troops launched Iraq’s largest anti-IS offensive last Sunday to reclaim Tikrit, a strategic stronghold between government-controlled Baghdad to the south and Islamic State-held Mosul to the north.

Iraqi forces with tactical help from Iran are carrying out the operation without intervention from the U.S.-led coalition, which continued to bomb IS targets Sunday in Iraq and Syria.

The airstrikes have not supported the Tikrit offensive, but hit 12 other IS positions in Iraq on Sunday, including Mosul, Kirkuk, and Fallujah, as well as in the Syrian border city of Kobani.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Sunday that at least 40 Kurdish fighters and Islamic State militants were killed in 24 hours of fierce clashes in the northern Syrian province of Hassakeh.

Baghdad has also requested extra air power from the U.S.-led coalition to protect the country’s antiquities, which have been targeted for destruction by Islamic State militants in recent weeks.

Iraq’s Tourism and Antiquities Minister Adel Shirshab told reporters, “Our airspace is not in our hands. It’s in their hands… I am calling on the international community and coalition to activate its airstrikes and target terrorism wherever it exists.”

Also on Sunday, a peshmerga spokesman in Irbil shed more light on the shooting death of a Canadian soldier by friendly fire in northern Iraq last week.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Halgurd Hikmat said special forces Sergeant Andrew Doiron and three other Canadians approached the Kurdish militia on the front lines and responded to questions in Arabic. Peshmerga fighters mistook them for Islamic State forces and opened fire

“The biggest part of the responsibility for this incident lies with them, because they went there without our permission,” Hikmat said.

Antichrist Vehemently Opposed Al-Maliki

Sadr opposes Maliki’s presidency over anti-ISIS Shia militias

Friday, 30 January 2015 10:19

 

 

Shia cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr warned that he would withdraw his fighters if Al-Maliki took control of the troops

Iraq’s powerful Shia cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr expressed his unequivocal opposition to allowing former Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki take control of the popular troops, a group of Shia volunteers setup to fight the Islamic State (ISIS), arguing that Al-Maliki’s leadership of the Shia militias is contrary to the new Iraqi government’s vision, the Anadolu Agency reported.In a statement released by his office yesterday, Al-Sadr warned in his statement of the imminent dangers that will face the country if Al-Maliki takes control of the Shia militants.

He pointed out that such a move was incompatible with top Shia cleric Ali Al-Sistani’s call for jihad.
The statement emphasised that such an attempt would inflame sectarianism in the country, threatening to withdraw the Saraya Al-Salam Shia fighters who emerged from the Sadrist movement if Al-Maliki took the position.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 1st, 2015 at 3:00 pm and is filed under The Prophecy . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Edit this entry.

Al-Maliki Resigns, Makes Way For Sadrists

Embattled Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki to step aside

The Guardian

Maliki says he has accepted the candidacy of Haider al-Abadi, nominated by the president to form a government

Prime Minister al-Maliki Resigns

People hold a portrait of Nouri al-Maliki and signs as they gather in support of him in Baghdad. Photograph: Ahmed Saad/Reuters

Nouri al-Malki, the embattled prime minister of Iraq, announced on Thursday that he was stepping down after support from his party and associates in parliament slipped away.

In a speech, Iraq’s two-term leader Maliki said that he accepted the candidacy of Haider al-Abadi, nominated last week by the Iraqi president to form a government.

Maliki had been struggling for weeks to stay for a third four-year term as prime minister amid an attempt by opponents to push him out, accusing him of monopolising power and pursuing a fiercely pro-Shiite agenda that has alienated the Sunni minority.

The pressure intensified this week when his Shiite political alliance backed another member of his party, Abadi, to replace him, and President Fouad Massoum nominated Abadi to form the next government.

Maliki for days has refused to step aside, saying the nomination violates the constitution. But in a meeting of his Dawa party on Thursday evening, Maliki agreed to endorse Abadi as the next prime minister. The former leader is understood to be seeking indemnity from any prosecution, as well as a role in the new government.

By stepping aside, Maliki ends his legal challenge to al-Abadi’s nomination as leader, which he had launched earlier in the week after learning that he would not be asked by new President, Fouad Massoum to form a government.

With his announcement, Maliki was bowing to the inevitable. He had lost the support of his party, of the president, the parliament, the Americans, Saudis and finally the Iranian government, his biggest foreign ally and sponsor. Even the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, issued a statement pointedly welcoming the appointment of Abadi.

But the confirmation of a new prime minister is only a small – albeit essential – step towards the huge task now facing the new government in Baghdad, which must knit the country back together again following its spectacular and violent unravelling this year. National cohesion will take a lot longer to recreate that it did to lose. The tribal structures of the Sunni population, which would have to be the building blocks of national reconstruction, have been severely damaged by Isis brutal sweep through the country.

Abadi however, has the great advantage of not being Maliki, whose narrow sectarian approach to government and brutal methods, made him a hate figure for Sunnis, and ultimately a liability for the Iraqi Shia and for Iran.

Like his successor, Maliki rose from obscurity to power, in large part due to the frustration of the US with existing prime minister Ibrahim Jafari. Installed in 2006 with US backing, Maliki’s star rose within American circles in 2007 when he permitted US forces to pursue the Shia militia of Moqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad and later ordered his own to attack the militia in Basra.

But Washington’s faith concealed a growing vindictiveness toward his rivals. US officials nervously watched him arrest Sunni ex-insurgents who had agreed to fight al-Qaida. In 2008 he outmaneuvered US diplomats seeking a long-term presence in Iraq, a precursor to the lack of Iraqi support in 2011 for a residual force.

Once US forces left, Maliki accelerated his consolidation of power, installing loyalists in key military and security positions. He ordered the arrest of the top Sunni in the government. As sectarian violence returned to Baghdad, Maliki proved unable to stop it, even as Iraqis came to see him as a miniature Saddam Hussein.

His alienation from Washington was on stark display last fall when he visited Obama with an urgent request for weaponry, including a long-delayed sale of F-16s. Maliki returned to Baghdad with little more than a pledge of Hellfire missiles and Apache attack helicopters. Isis was at his doorstep.

Maliki’s resignation paves the way for closer US military assistance to stop Isis, which occupies three cities, much of Iraq’s rural heart, and continues to menace Baghdad. Isis also controls most of the border between Iraq and Syria, has emptied the Ninevah plains of minorities that have co-existed for several thousand years and advanced towards the Kurdish capital, Irbil.

Iraq’s new leader has pledged to work on building bridges between the Shia-led Government, the Sunnis and the Kurds. Central government control has whittled away as Isis has seized ground and public confidence in the political class has tanked.

With al-Abadi facing no further legal hurdles, he now has 26 days to form a government. Iraq’s constitution gives a nominated prime minister 30 days to do so, however the past four days had been consumed by Maliki refusing to leave.

US officials have indicated that an inclusive central government would make it easier for them to provide the same sort of military support they had to the Kurds in recent weeks. Airstrikes have slowed the momentum of Isis near Irbil and in the country’s northwest. However Barack Obama has ignored persistent pleas from Baghdad for similar help, insisting that political unity first be established.

The Start of the Great Horn (Daniel 8:3)

The Start of the Great Horn (Daniel 8:3)

Crisis in the Middle East: The end of a country, and the start of a new dark age

The Independent

Iraq has disintegrated. Little is exchanged between its three great communities – Shia, Sunni and Kurd – except gunfire. The outside world hopes that a more inclusive government will change this but it is probably too late. The main victor in the new war in Iraq is the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) which wants to kill Shia rather than negotiate with them. Iraq is facing a civil war that could be as bloody as anything that we have seen in Syria and could go on for years.

The crucial date in this renewed conflict is 10 June, 2014 when Isis captured Iraq’s northern capital, Mosul, after three days’ fighting. The Iraqi government had an army with 350,000 soldiers on which $41.6bn (£25bn) had been spent in the three years from 2011, but this force melted away without significant resistance. Discarded uniforms and equipment were found strewn along the roads leading to Kurdistan and safety. The flight was led by commanding officers, some of whom rapidly changed into civilian clothes as they abandoned their men. Given that Isis may have had as few as 1,300 fighters in its assault on Mosul this was one of the great military debacles in history. Within two weeks those parts of northern and western Iraq outside Kurdish control were in the hands of Isis. By the end of the month the group had announced a caliphate straddling the Iraq-Syria border.

People in Baghdad are used to shocks after years of war, massacres, occupation and dictatorship, but when Mosul fell they could feel the ground shifting under their feet. Soon Isis fighters were only an hour’s drive north of a capital in which the streets, normally choked with traffic, grew quiet as people stayed at home because they thought it too dangerous to go out. This was particularly true of Sunni districts such as al-Adhamiyah on the east bank of the Tigris River, where young men rightly believed that if they passed through a checkpoint they were likely to be arrested or worse. People watched television obsessively, nervously channel-hopping as they tried to tease out the truth from competing propaganda claims. The sense of crisis was made worse by the main government channel broadcasting upbeat accounts of the latest victories, though the claims were seldom backed up by pictures. “Watch enough government television and pretty soon you would decide there is not a single member of Isis in the country,” said one observer.

Militants on the march near Tikrit

The political geography of Iraq was changing before its people’s eyes and there were material signs of this everywhere. Baghdadis cook on propane gas because the electricity supply is so unreliable but soon there was a chronic shortage of gas cylinders because they come from Kirkuk and the road from the north had been cut by Isis fighters. To hire a truck to come the 200 miles from the Kurdish capital Erbil to Baghdad now cost $10,000 for a single journey, compared to $500 a month earlier. There were ominous signs that Iraqis feared a future filled with violence as weapons and ammunition soared in price. The cost of a bullet for an AK47 assault rifle quickly tripled to 3,000 Iraqi dinars, or about $2. Kalashnikovs were almost impossible to buy from arms dealers, though pistols could still be obtained at three times the price of the previous week. Suddenly, almost everybody had guns, including even Baghdad’s paunchy, white-shirted traffic police who began carrying sub-machine guns.

Many of the armed men who started appearing in the streets of Baghdad and other Shia cities were Shia militiamen, some from Asaib Ahl al-Haq, a splinter group from the movement of Shia populist and nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. This organisation is partly controlled by the Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and, it is generally assumed, by the Iranians. It was a measure of the collapse of the state security forces and the national army that the government was relying on a sectarian militia to defend the capital. Ironically, one of Maliki’s few achievements as prime minister had been to face down the Shia militias in 2008, but now he was encouraging them to return to the streets. Soon dead bodies were being dumped at night. They were stripped of their ID cards but were assumed to be Sunni victims of the militia death squads. Iraq seemed to be slipping over the edge into an abyss in which sectarian massacres and counter-massacres rivalled those during the sectarian civil war between Sunni and Shia in 2006-07.

The renewed sectarian violence was very visible. There was an appalling video of Iraqi military cadets being machine-gunned near Tikrit by a line of Isis gunmen as they stood in front of a shallow open grave. It reminded me of pictures of the SS murdering Jews in Russia and Poland during the Second World War. Human rights organisations using satellite pictures said they estimated the number of dead to be 170 though it might have been many more. Shia who were from the Turkoman ethnic group living in villages south of Kirkuk were driven from their homes and between 15 and 25 of them were murdered. It may be that the Shia will react in kind, but so far the killings have largely been of Shia by Isis.

Isis described its military strategy as “moving like a serpent between the rocks”, in other words using its forces as shock troops to take easy targets but not getting dragged into prolonged fighting in which its fighters would be tied down and suffer heavy casualties. It picked off government garrisons in Sunni-majority districts, and in the places it captured it did not necessarily leave many of its militants behind but rather relied on local allies. Many in Baghdad and in governments across the world hoped that these allies of Isis – local tribes and local Sunni leaders – could be persuaded to split from Isis because of its violence and primeval social agenda. In the refinery town of Baiji local people said that Isis had been going from house to house asking for the names of married and unmarried women, sometimes demanding to see ID cards, which in Iraq specify marital status. They explained they were doing this because their unmarried fighters wanted to have wives. No doubt there will be a negative reaction to this sort of activity from the local Sunni communities, but a movement that is well organised and prepared to kill any opponent will not be easy to challenge.

The rise of Isis and its military successes has led to short-sighted euphoria in Sunni countries. People congratulate themselves that it is no longer only the Shia who are on the offensive. But in practice Isis’s seizure of a leadership position in Syria and Iraq’s communities will most likely prove to be a disaster for them. Isis is being used as a vanguard movement that will not allow itself to be easily displaced and, like the fascists in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, will seek to crush anybody who tries. The Sunnis have ceded a commanding role to a movement that sees itself as divinely inspired and whose agenda involves endless and unwinnable wars against apostates and heretics. Iraq and Syria can be divided up, but they cannot be divided up cleanly and peacefully because too many minorities, like the million or more Sunni in Baghdad, are on the wrong side of any conceivable dividing line. At best, Syria and Iraq face years of intermittent civil war; at worst, the division of these countries will be like the partition of India in 1947 when massacre and fear of massacre established new demographic frontiers.

The fall of Mosul and the Isis-led Sunni revolt marks the end of a distinct period in Iraqi history that began with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by the US and British invasion of March 2003. There was an attempt by the Iraqi opposition to the old regime and their foreign allies to create a new Iraq in which the three communities shared power in Baghdad. The experiment failed disastrously and it seems it will be impossible to resurrect it because the battle lines between Kurd, Sunni and Shia are now too stark and embittered. The balance of power inside Iraq is changing. So too are the de facto frontiers of the state, with an expanded and increasingly independent Kurdistan – the Kurds having opportunistically used the crisis to secure territories they have always claimed – and the Iraq-Syrian border having ceased to exist. The impact of these events is being felt across the Middle East as governments take on board that Isis, an al-Qai’da-type group of the greatest ferocity and religious bigotry, has been able to claim the creation of a Sunni caliphate spanning much of Iraq and Syria.

This book focuses on several critical short- and long-term developments in the Middle East that are affecting or will soon affect the rest of the world. The most important of these is the resurgence of the al-Qa’ida-type movements that today rule a vast area in north and west Iraq and eastern and northern Syria. The area under their sway is several hundred times larger than any territory ever controlled by Osama bin Laden, the killing of whom in 2011 was supposed to be a major blow to world terrorism. In fact, it is since bin Laden’s death that al-Qa’ida affiliates or clones have had their greatest successes, including the capture of Raqqa in the eastern part of Syria, the only provincial capital in that country to fall to the rebels, in March 2013. In January 2014, Isis took over Fallujah just 40 miles west of Baghdad, a city famously besieged and stormed by US marines 10 years earlier. Within a few months they had also captured Mosul and Tikrit. The battle lines may continue to change, but the overall expansion of their power appears permanent. With their swift and multi-pronged assault across central and northern Iraq in June 2014, the Isis militants had superceded al-Qa’ida as the most powerful and effective jihadi group in the world.

A vehicle belonging to Iraqi forces on fire in Mosul

These developments came as a shock to many in the West, including politicians and specialists whose view of what was happening often seemed outpaced by events. One reason for this was that it was too risky for journalists and outside observers to visit the areas where Isis was operating because of the extreme danger of being kidnapped or murdered. “Those who used to protect the foreign media can no longer protect themselves,” one intrepid correspondent told me, explaining why he would not be returning to rebel-held Syria. The triumph of Isis in Iraq in 2013-14 came as a particular surprise because the western media had largely stopped reporting the country. This lack of coverage had been convenient for the US and other Western governments because it enabled them to play down the extent to which “the war on terror” had failed so catastrophically in the years since 9/11.

This failure is masked by deceptions and self-deceptions on the part of governments. Speaking at West Point on America’s role in the world on 28 May 28 2014, President Barack Obama said that the main threat to the United States no longer came from al-Qa’ida central but from “decentralised al-Qa’ida affiliates and extremists, many with agendas focused on the countries where they operate.” He added that “as the Syrian civil war spills across borders, the capacity of battle-hardened extremist groups to come after us only increases”. This was true enough, but Obama’s solution to the danger was, as he put it, “to ramp up support for those in the Syrian opposition who offer the best alternative to terrorists.” By June he was asking Congress for $500m to train and equip “appropriately vetted” members of the Syrian opposition. It is here that self-deception reigns, because the Syrian military opposition is dominated by Isis and by Jabhat al-Nusra (JAN), the official al-Qa’ida representative, in addition to other extreme jihadi groups. In reality, there is no dividing wall between them and America’s supposedly moderate opposition allies.

An intelligence officer from a Middle East country neighbouring Syria told me that Isis members “say they are always pleased when sophisticated weapons are sent to anti-Assad groups of any kind because they can always get the arms off them by threats of force or cash payments.” Western support for the Syrian opposition may have failed to overthrow Assad, but it was successfully destabilising Iraq, as Iraqi politicians had long predicted.

The importance of Saudi Arabia in the rise and return of al-Qa’ida is often misunderstood and understated. Saudi Arabia is influential because its oil and vast wealth make it powerful in the Middle East and beyond. But it is not financial resources alone that make it such an important player. Another factor is its propagating of Wahhabism, the fundamentalist 18th-century version of Islam that imposes sharia law, relegates women to second-class citizens, and regards Shia and Sufi Muslims as heretics and apostates to be persecuted along with Christians and Jews. This religious intolerance and political authoritarianism, which in its readiness to use violence has many similarities with European fascism in the 1930s, is getting worse rather than better. A Saudi who set up a liberal website on which clerics could be criticised was recently sentenced to a thousand lashes and seven years in prison.

Iraqi soldiers in civilian clothes flee Kirkuk on the back of a truck

The ideology of al-Qa’ida and Isis draws a great deal from Wahhabism. Critics of this new trend in Islam from elsewhere in the Muslim world do not survive long; they are forced to flee or murdered. Denouncing jihadi leaders in Kabul in 2003, an Afghan editor described them as “holy fascists”, who were misusing Islam as “an instrument to take over power”. Unsurprisingly, he was accused of insulting Islam and had to leave the country.

A striking development in the Islamic world in recent decades is the way in which Wahhabism is taking over mainstream Sunni Islam. In one country after another Saudi Arabia is putting up the money for the training of preachers and the building of mosques. A result of this is the spread of sectarian strife between Sunni and Shia. The latter find themselves targeted with unprecedented viciousness from Tunisia to Indonesia. Such sectarianism is not confined to country villages outside Aleppo or in the Punjab, it is poisoning relations between the two sects in every Islamic grouping. A Muslim friend in London told me: “Go through the address books of any Sunni or Shia in Britain and you will find very few names belonging to people outside their own community.”

The resurgence of al-Qa’ida-type groups is not a threat confined to Syria, Iraq, and their near neighbours. What is happening in these countries, combined with the increasing dominance of intolerant and exclusive Wahhabite beliefs within the worldwide Sunni community, means that all 1.6 billion Muslims, almost a quarter of the world’s people, will be increasingly affected. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that non-Muslim populations, including many in the West, will be untouched by the conflict. Today’s resurgent jihadism, which has shifted the political terrain in Iraq and Syria, is already having far-reaching effects on global politics with dire consequences for us all.

This is an extract from ‘The Jihadis Return: Isis and the New Sunni Uprising’, by Patrick Cockburn, published by OR Books, available exclusively at orbooks.com

Al-Sadr Is Iraq’s Own Blood Party

Fareed Zakaria: al-Sadr’s Shiite Militia Is Like Iraq’s “Own Tea Party”

Al Sadr and the Mahdi Army

FAREED ZAKARIA: Now for our “What in the World” segment. It seems that everyone, President Obama, John Kerry, NATO, Grand Ayatollah Sistani, even the Iranian government — has the same advice for prime minister of Iraq, Nuri al-Maliki. Form a broad-based inclusive government that reaches out to the Sunnis. That would take away some of the sense of grievance that fuels their support for radical Sunni groups like ISIS that are threatening Iraq’s existence as a nation.

So why in the world is Maliki flatly refusing to do this? Partly is because he’s a hard line Shiite politician himself whose party draws its support from the Shiites who are not particularly well disposed to the notion of being nice to the Sunnis, their former overlords. But it’s probably at least as much because Maliki needs to worry about radical Shiites as much as radical Sunnis. You see, he has his own tea party, and this one has an army of its own.

Last Saturday members of the group formally called the Mahdi Army now called the Peace Brigades paraded through the streets of Baghdad by the tens of thousands displaying their readiness to supposedly protect holy sites and shrines. The group’s name might be new but its leader is a well known figure in Iraq and dominated the U.S. media during the American occupation. 

Remember the name Muqtada al-Sadr? He is the radical Shiite cleric who fiercely opposed the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Back then the Mahdi Army was responsible for some of the deadliest days of the war, then he overplayed his hand. The U.S. got other Shiite leaders to turn on him, issue an arrest warrant and in 2007 he fled to Iran where he sought exile and supposedly studied theology. 

But when he returned in 2011 his followers remained loyal to him and he wields real political power in Iraq. Al-Maliki got to keep his job as prime minister after an inconclusive election in 2010 largely because Muqtada al-Sadr helped him to build a coalition thereby ending months of political deadlock. Since al-Sadr has called Nuri al-Maliki a dictator and in a very surprising twist, recently added pressure on him to step down by calling for the creation of a new emergency government right after Maliki rejected the idea.

Al-Sadr urged the Iraqi government to incorporate moderate Sunnis who have been marginalized in order to quell the bloodshed. Now al-Sadr appears to be trying to become the new power broker of Iraq condemning ISIS and the Sunni terrorist groups but also appealing to moderate Sunnis. Whether or not he succeeds we are probably witnessing serious splits in the Shiite coalition and that can only mean more chaos in an already chaotic situation.

Antichrist Will Shake The Earth (Revelation 6)

POWERFUL Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has vowed to “shake the ground” under the feet of advancing Sunni militants as Iraqi premier Nuri al-Maliki warned rivals against exploiting the crisis to sideline him.

Antichrist Shakes the Earth

Mr Sadr, whose movement long battled US forces during Washington’s nearly nine-year war in Iraq, also voiced opposition to American military advisers meeting with Iraqi commanders combating an offensive that has overrun swathes of five provinces, killed nearly 1100 people, displaced hundreds of thousands and threatens to tear the country apart.

His remarks came as security forces continued to repel assaults on critical towns and infrastructure, though fighters from al-Qa’ida’s Syrian franchise made a local alliance with the jihadist group leading the charge in Iraq, bolstering its offensive.

“We will shake the ground under the feet of ignorance and extremism,” Mr Sadr said in a televised speech from the Shiite holy city of Najaf.

He added that he only backed “providing international support from non-occupying states for the army of Iraq”.

The cleric’s remarks came days after fighters loyal to him paraded with weapons in the Sadr City area of north Baghdad, vowing to fight a major militant offensive that has alarmed the world and threatens to tear Iraq apart.

Iraq’s flagging security forces were swept aside by the initial offensive but have since at least somewhat recovered, and while Mr Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia remains officially inactive, fighters loyal to the cleric have nevertheless vowed to combat the militant advance.

The cleric also called for “new faces” in a national unity government following April 30 elections that saw incumbent prime minister Nouri al-Maliki emerge with by far the most seats, albeit short of a majority.

In apparent response to calls from Sunni tribal leaders to form a government that ignores the result of an April 30 election, which they describe as a sham, Mr Maliki said on Wednesday that would be a “coup against the constitution and the political process”.

The beleaguered premier, whose bloc won by far the most seats in April, said such a move was “an attempt by those who are against the constitution to eliminate the young democratic process and steal the votes of the voters.” Though Washington has pressed for Iraq’s fractious political leaders to unite in the face of the campaign led by the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS) jihadist group, they have shown little sign of coming together.

US “support will be intense, sustained, and if Iraq’s leaders take the necessary steps to bring the country together, it will be effective,” Secretary of State John Kerry said during a visit to Iraq in which he met numerous politicians and urged them to work together.

US President Barack Obama has so far refrained from carrying out air strikes on the insurgents, as urged by Mr Maliki, but American military advisers began meeting Iraqi commanders yesterday, with Washington having offered up to 300.

Washington has stopped short of calling for Mr Maliki to go, but has left little doubt it feels he has squandered the opportunity to rebuild Iraq since American troops withdrew in 2011.

In a sign the Iraqi military has performed better in recent days, loyalists fought off insurgent attacks on Wednesday on a major air base and a key western town, after repelling assaults on Iraq’s biggest oil refinery.

Militants and security forces clashed periodically overnight, but government troops maintained control of the Balad air base, while another offensive was repelled in Haditha in Anbar province, west of Baghdad.

But the country was nevertheless hit by militant violence, with bombings and shelling south of Baghdad and in the disputed, ethnically mixed northern oil hub of Kirkuk killing 20 people.

Mr Maliki’s security spokesman has meanwhile said hundreds of soldiers have been killed since the offensive began.

Insurgents were also bolstered by fighters when Al-Nusra Front, al-Qa’ida’s front group in Syria, made a local pledge of loyalty to ISIS on a town along the Syria-Iraq border, giving it control over both sides of the frontier.

The move reflects how ISIS is fast gaining the upper hand in eastern Syria, where it has been locked in combat with fighters from the al-Qa’ida franchise and its allies virtually all year.

ISIS adheres to a harsh interpretation of Islamic law and considers Iraq’s majority Shiite population to be heretics.

It aims to create an Islamic state straddling Iraq and Syria, where it has become a major force in the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad.

It has commandeered an enormous quantity of cash and resources during the advance, boosting its coffers.

The United Nations says at least 1075 people have been killed in Iraq between June 5 and 22 and has tripled its appeal for aid funding to more than $312 million, while the UN food agency has warned that the country faces “serious food security concerns”.

AFP

Reports: Iraq signs arms deal with Iran

Reports: Iraq signs arms deal with Iran

The Two Horns: Khomenei and al-Sadr

The Iraqi government has been battling armed groups, who have taken over western Anbar province [EPA]

Iran has signed a deal to sell Iraq arms and ammunition worth $195m, according to documents seen by Reuters news agency – a move that would break a UN embargo on weapons sales by Iran.

The agreement was reached at the end of November, the documents showed, just weeks after Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s prime minister, returned from Washington, where he lobbied the Obama administration for extra weapons to fight armed rebels.

The official documents seen by Reuters showed that six of eight contracts were signed with Iran’s Defence Industries Organisation to supply Iraq with light and medium arms, mortar launchers, ammunition for tanks as well as artillery and mortars.

A final two contracts were agreed to with the state-owned Iran Electronic Industries for night vision goggles, communications equipment and mortar guiding devices.

One of the contracts includes equipment to protect against chemical agents.

The Obama administration pressed the Iraqi government on Monday to explain the media reports.
“We’ve certainly seen those reports. If true, this would raise serious concerns,” Jen Psaki, State Department spokeswoman, said.

She said that “any transfer of arms from Iran to a third country is in direct violation” of the UN embargo.

“We are seeking clarification on this matter from the government of Iraq and to ensure that Iraqi officials understand the limits that international law places on arms trade with Iran,” Psaki said.

Some in Washington are nervous about providing sensitive US military equipment to a country they worry is becoming too close to Iran. Several Iraqi legislators said Maliki had made the deal because he was fed up with delays to US arms deliveries.

Security troubles

A spokesman for Maliki would not confirm or deny the sale, but said such a deal would be understandable given Iraq’s current security troubles.

“We are launching a war against terrorism and we want to win this war. Nothing prevents us from buying arms and ammunition from any party and it’s only ammunition helping us to fight terrorists,” Ali Mussawi, the spokesman, said.

Three Iraqi legislators, who said they had knowledge of the deals, argued they were due to Maliki’s unhappiness with US response to his request to supply Iraq with arms and ammunition to fight armed groups.

The Iranian government denied any knowledge of a deal to sell arms to Iraq. It would be the first official arms deal between Shia Iran and Iraq’s Shia-led government and highlight the growing bond between them in the two years since the departure of US troops from Iraq.

One US official, told of Reuters’ findings, said such a deal could further complicate the US administration’s approach to negotiating with Iran on easing international sanctions over its nuclear programme, which the West suspects is aimed at producing bombs. Iran says its aims are purely peaceful.

“If true, this would raise serious concerns,” said the US official, who declined to be named. “Any transfer of arms from Iran to a third country is in direct violation of Iran’s obligations under UNSCR 1747.”

A UN diplomatic source close to the UN Security Council’s Iran sanctions committee was aware of the arms deal and voiced concern about it, while declining to disclose details about those concerns. The source spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Who Is The Antichrist?

Profile: Moqtada Sadr

Moqtada al-Sadr the Antichrist

 
Moqtada Sadr has been a powerful figure in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Although the situation has changed in the country since the radical Shia cleric went into self-imposed exile in Iran in 2007, he appears to have has lost none of his influence and has maintained his wide support among many of Iraq’s impoverished Shia Muslims.

At times he has called for a national rebellion against foreign troops and sent out his Mehdi Army militiamen to confront the “invaders” and Iraqi security forces.

At others he has appeared more compromising, seeking for himself a political role within the new Iraq and helping form the national unity government in December 2010.

He returned to Iraq on 5 January 2011. Weeks before the withdrawal of US troops from the country, as negotiations were ongoing between Baghdad and Washington over a possible extension of their mission, he threatened to reactivate the Mehdi Army in case an extension is agreed.

Prayer leader

The youngest son of Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq Sadr - who was assassinated in 1999, reportedly by Iraqi agents - Moqtada Sadr was virtually unknown outside Iraq before the March 2003 invasion.

But the collapse of Baathist rule revealed his power base – a network of Shia charitable institutions founded by his father.

Moqtada Sadr was virtually unknown outside Iraq before the invasion, but quickly gained a following
In the first weeks following the US-led invasion, Moqtada Sadr’s followers patrolled the streets of Baghdad’s Shia suburbs, distributing food, providing healthcare and taking on many of the functions of local government.

They also changed the name of the Saddam City area to Sadr City.

Moqtada Sadr also continued his father’s practice of holding Friday prayers to project his voice to a wider audience.

The practice undermined the traditional system of seniority in Iraqi Shia politics and contributed to the development of rivalries with two of Iraq’s Grand Ayatollahs, Kazim al-Hairi and Ali Sistani.
Moqtada Sadr drew attention to their links with Iran, whose influence on Iraq’s political and religious life his followers resented. Moqtada Sadr has become a symbol of resistance to foreign occupation
He also called on Shia spiritual leaders to play an active role in shaping Iraq’s political future, something most avoided.

Armed force

Moqtada Sadr also used his Friday sermons to express vocal opposition to the US-led occupation and the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC).

In June 2003, he established a militia group, the Mehdi Army, pledging to protect the Shia religious authorities in the holy city of Najaf.

He also set up a weekly newspaper, al-Hawzah, which the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) banned in March 2004 for inciting anti-US violence. The move caused fighting to break out between the Mehdi Army and US-led coalition forces in Najaf, Sadr City and Basra.

The following month, the US said an Iraqi judge had issued an arrest warrant for Moqtada Sadr in connection with the murder of the moderate Shia leader, Abdul Majid al-Khoei, in April 2003. Moqtada Sadr strongly denied any role.

The Mehdi Army was involved in fierce fighting with US forces in August 2004 in Najaf. Hostilities between the Mehdi Army and US forces resumed in August 2004 in Najaf and did not stop until Ayatollah Sistani brokered a ceasefire. The fighting left hundreds dead and wounded.

During the negotiations for a truce, the Americans also reportedly agreed to lay aside the warrant for Moqtada Sadr.

The fierce clashes continued in Sadr City, however, and only ended in October after the Mehdi Army had sustained heavy losses.

Political power

Though costly, the violence cemented Moqtada Sadr’s standing as a force to be reckoned with in Iraq. Supporters of Moqtada Sadr have performed strongly in all elections since the 2003 invasion

He became a symbol of resistance to foreign occupation – a counterpoint to established Shia groups such as the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) and the Daawa Party.

Despite this, Moqtada Sadr chose to join his rivals’ coalition for the December 2005 elections – the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA).

The alliance had easily won Iraq’s first post-invasion election the previous January, and with the Sadr Bloc on board again came out on top.

In the months of government negotiations that followed, Moqtada Sadr used his influence to push for the appointment of Nouri Maliki, then Daawa’s deputy leader, as prime minister. In return, his supporters got powerful positions in the cabinet.

At the same time, extremist Sunni Islamist militant groups – increasingly supported by Iraq’s marginalised Sunni Arab minority – had begun to target the Shia community, not just foreign troops.
Insurgents attacked Shia Islam’s most important shrines and killed many Shia politicians, clerics, soldiers, police and civilians. In 2006 and 2007, thousands of people were killed as the sectarian conflict raged in Iraq.

As the sectarian violence worsened, the Mehdi Army was increasingly accused of carrying out reprisal attacks against Sunni Arabs.

In 2006 and 2007, thousands of people were killed as the sectarian conflict raged. The Iraqi security forces seemed unable to stop the violence, though many blamed this on the infiltration of the interior and defence ministries by the Mehdi Army and other Shia militias.

One Pentagon report described the Mehdi Army as the greatest threat to Iraq’s security – even more so than al-Qaeda in Iraq. Iran was accused of arming it with sophisticated bombs used in attacks on coalition forces.

Showdown

Then in early 2007, after US President George W Bush ordered a troop “surge” in Iraq, it was reported that Moqtada Sadr had left for Iran and told his supporters

In August 2007, heavy fighting broke out between the Mehdi Army and Sciri’s Badr Brigade in Karbala, leaving many dead. In March 2008, the Iraqi government ordered a major offensive against the Mehdi Army in Basra

The internecine fighting was condemned by many Shia, and Moqtada Sadr was forced to declare a ceasefire.

In March 2008, Mr Maliki ordered a major offensive against the militia in the southern city.
At first, the Mehdi Army seemed to have fended off the government’s attempts to gain control of Basra. But within weeks, it had accepted a truce negotiated by Iran, and the Iraqi army consolidated its hold.

US and Iraqi forces also moved into Sadr City, sparking fierce clashes but also eventually emerging victorious.

In August 2008, Moqtada Sadr ordered a halt to armed operations. He declared that the Mehdi Army would be transformed into a cultural and social organisation, although it would retain a special unit of fighters who would continue armed resistance against occupying forces.

Kingmaker

He meanwhile devoted his time to theological studies in the Iranian holy city of Qom, in the hope of eventually becoming an ayatollah.

Analysts say the title would grant him religious legitimacy and allow him to mount a more serious challenge to the conservative clerical establishment in Iraq.

At the same time, he built on the gains of the Sadr Bloc in the 2005 elections to increase his political influence. His supporters performed strongly in the 2009 local elections and made gains in the March 2010 parliamentary polls as the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), ending up with 40 seats.

The result made Moqtada Sadr the kingmaker in the new parliament. He toyed initially with backing Mr Maliki’s rival for the premiership, but in June agreed to a merger between the INA and the prime minister’s State of Law coalition.

Then in October, he was finally persuaded by Iran to drop his objection to Mr Maliki’s reappointment in return for eight posts in the cabinet.

Secure in his standing, Moqtada Sadr returned from Iran in January to scenes of jubilation.

The Iraqi Spring Is Coming

The leader of the Sadrist trend, Muqtada al-Sadr, warned that “the Iraqi Spring is coming” after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki threatened to use force to disperse a protest along the international road in Anbar province ten days ago. So is the Iraqi Spring really coming? The simple answer is that the Iraqi Spring will be the Iranian Autumn.

Al-Maliki has not overcome the storm he is facing; rather it has transformed into a hurricane, and those that will fall this time are the Iranians, not the Iraqis. Tehran certainly would not be able to bear the fall of the criminal al-Assad regime and the uprooting of its ally al-Maliki in Iraq, for this would be a tough Iranian Autumn, especially with the Iranian presidential elections around the corner, not to mention other issues soon to come to a head such as the Iranian nuclear program. All this could push Iran to accelerate the fall of al-Maliki, before the fall of al-Assad, by replacing al-Maliki as Iraq’s Prime Minister with another, more acceptable figure. This is what many in Iraq must be alert to, especially some of the Sunnis there. They must distance themselves from such sectarianism and not raise pictures of Saddam Hussein in their protests. Just as al-Sadr warned them himself, and he is right, it is possible to turn the Iraqi storm into a hurricane to uproot al-Maliki, even before he uses the force he is threatening.
Al-Sadr has entered into the anti-Maliki demonstrations, and certainly the Kurds will follow, especially with al-Maliki’s continual threats towards them. Of course the Sadrists and the Kurds understand - along with other Iraqi political forces - the seriousness of what al-Maliki is doing in Iraq. These factors could all force Iran to take a step, along the lines of “jumping before you are pushed”, to replace al-Maliki with another figure capable of achieving the minimum level of Iraqi consensus, especially as al-Maliki has burned his bridges with the bulk of the Iraqi political trends. Iran, which is doing all it can today to prevent the inevitable fall of al-Assad, cannot afford the fall of another strategic ally, Iraq. This would be a difficult blow to take for the mullah’s regime in Iran, which, as noted above, has other important and decisive concerns, whether externally or internally.
The fall of al-Maliki, as threatened by al-Sadr through his claim that “the Iraqi Spring is coming”, means that Iran’s hands in the region will be cut off, and the magic would turn against the magician. Just as Iran thought there would be no Syria without al-Assad, Tehran could soon find itself without any state-level allies in the region, including Iraq and Syria.
Thus, as long as the active Iraqi parties mobilize in a coordinated manner, and with al-Maliki countering the demonstrations with force, and some of the Sunnis in Iraq realizing that the time now requires intelligence not emotion, especially when it comes to raising pictures of Saddam Hussein and other divisive acts, then we should not rule out the possibility that al-Maliki could fall at the hands of Iran, before the fall of the tyrant al-Assad. This would be in order to preserve the minimum of Iran’s interests in the region. Yet the fall of al-Maliki at the hands of the Iraqis, through the so-called “Iraqi Spring” that al-Sadr has warned of, will likely represent the Iranian Autumn, and this is what wise minds everywhere must encourage!
 

Antichrist Tries To Unify Iraq

Iraq's prominent radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has called for the fair implementation of national security laws that have drawn weeks of protests from minority Sunnis who see them as biased against their community.

In an interview with VOA's sister television network, Alhurra, al-Sadr said he agreed with Sunni protesters that the government of Iraq's Shi'ite prime minister has been acting in a biased way.  "We believe the problem is in the implementation of the [security] laws, and not the laws themselves," al-Sadr said.

He said his Shi'ite political movement wants Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to fairly apply the laws, which enable the detention of suspected terrorists and the removal of officials linked to the Baath party of Iraq's former Sunni dictator, Saddam Hussein.  Al-Sadr's party, the Sadrist Trend, is a member of Maliki's ruling coalition and has 40 seats in the 325-member parliament.

Sunni complaints

Thousands of Iraqi Sunnis have been staging weeks of anti-government protests across the country, denouncing what they see as Maliki's use of the security laws to target and marginalize the Sunni minority.  The protests erupted last month in response to security forces detaining the bodyguards of Iraq's Sunni finance minister - one of the few Sunni members of Maliki's Cabinet.

Many Sunni demonstrators also accuse the prime minister of acting like a dictator and want him to resign.  In the largest protest, Sunnis have blocked a key highway for three weeks in the western province of Anbar.

In the interview, al-Sadr expressed sympathy for the protests, saying he does not differentiate between fellow Shi'ites and Sunnis.  "What is happening in Anbar province is not a crisis, but a healthy phenomenon that reflects a popular and democratic movement," al-Sadr said.

Calls for reform

He also said most Sunni demonstrators want the controversial security laws to be reformed rather than eliminated.  "They are only against the way [the laws] are being implemented.  They are for de-Baathification [of the government], but without discrimination."

Al-Sadr suggested Maliki should resign over the crisis. "The prime minister should act as a father figure to all Iraqis.  If the father does not play a just and fair role between his children, he does not deserve the title of father figure."

But the Shi'ite cleric declined to join the protesters' demand for an amnesty to be granted to Sunni women detained under the anti-terrorism law.  When asked about the demand, al-Sadr said he believes the law has been implemented "badly," but he also added that "all of us want to fight terrorism."

Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister, has warned largely Sunni demonstrators to stop their protests against the Shia-led government which they say discriminates against them.

The move comes as powerful Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr voiced his support for the Sunni protests.

Maliki has ordered the release of more than 700 female prisoners, a key demand of the demonstrators, but he also issued a warning to the protesters to end their rallies.

Al Jazeera's Omar Al Saleh reports from Baghdad.

Antichrist Back At Iraq Centerstage

Al-Monitor this week launched the Iraq Pulse, featuring original reporting and commentary from prominent reporters and analysts inside Iraq.

About This Article

Summary : Al-Monitor this week launched the Iraq Pulse, featuring original reporting and commentary from prominent reporters and analysts inside Iraq. Author: Week in Review posted on: Sun, Jan 6, 2013 Categories : Originals Iraq

Iraqi politics, and the regional context in which they happen, are increasingly contentious, factionalized, and volatile, even by Iraq’s standards.
Relations between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Region have deteriorated even further since Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki deployed the Tigris Operational Command in disputed areas near Kirkuk in late 2012.  In addition to the ongoing dispute over a hydrocarbons law and revenue sharing, the military edge to the conflict is an ominous sign, reminiscent of the crisis in Khanaqin in 2008, when US intervention prevented a military confrontation.   As Ryan Crocker, former US ambassador to Iraq, told Al-Monitor recently, “The Kurdish region exists inextricably as part of a region that has never been more volatile than it is right now.”

Provincial elections, scheduled for this Spring, may be catalyst for score-settling among Iraq’s political parties, as Saleem Al-Hasani wrote this week for Al-Monitor.  Maliki is facing an uprising by Sunni groups in Ramadi and elsewhere. Shiite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr is seeking to exploit the Sunni challenge to Maliki, as Ali Abdel Sadah reported for Al-Monitor.
The politics surrounding investigations into allegations of corruption in a Russian arms deal to Iraq and at Iraq’s Central Bank, both covered by Al-Monitor, have heightened the sense of crisis and instability in Iraq.
Iraqi politics cannot be detached from the machinations and intrigues of its neighbors and the broader regional context.  As this column has previously noted, Iraq is a fault line in the sectarian war between Turkey and Iran, which is playing out in Syria and throughout the Middle East.  The Turkey-Iran contest for influence in Syria and Iraq, and the broader sectarian conflict, are all of a piece.
The evolution of Turkey’s sectarian agenda, including in Iraq, as Semih Idiz wrote this week in Al-Monitor, has puzzled many observers. The basic understanding of Turkish interests in Iraq has historically been to support a unified, though not necessarily strong country while containing the aspirations of Iraq’s Kurds, given Turkey’s own Kurdish issue.  That Prime Minister Erdogan has thrown his lot completely with Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani has worsened relations with Baghdad, and by extension Iran.
Barzani may be boxed in by his worsening relations with Maliki and an overdependence on Ankara, as Denise Natali has written.  The Kurdistan Region’s progress in signing production sharing agreements with international oil companies is noteworthy, but long term prosperity depends on a deal with Baghdad, and there is no sign of progress there.
As Erdogan pursues a sectarian program for Iraq, Iran will check Turkey’s ambitions.  Tehran will make clear to Barzani, Erdogan, Maliki, Sadr, and everyone else that Iran alone will be the arbiter of war or peace, instability or stability, in Iraq, as well as in Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza.
Al-Monitor’s Iraq Pulse will cover Iraq with the same diversity, originality, depth, and attention to trends which characterize our Israel, Lebanon, Palestine and Turley Pulses.  Given that Iraq remains central to the political, economic, and strategic landscape of the region, the Iraq Pulse furthers Al-Monitor’s mission to uncover the trends while covering the news in the Middle East.

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/01/iraq-pulse-ryan-crocker-turkey.html#ixzz2HL0DrUXR

The Antichrist Moqtada al-Sadr Unifies Iraq

No one in Iraq had ever imagined that a popular and political alliance would one day bring together Muqtada al-Sadr and the Sunni Arabs. The two parties participated in an excruciating civil war (2006-2008) that resulted in thousands of casualties on both sides.

Sunni Arabs have always viewed Sadr as the commander of an armed militia. However, they are now strongly calling on him to join them in their protests against Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Sadr, in turn, has always viewed the Sunnis as terrorists that threaten the Shiites. However, he supported them in the media, lashed out at his Shiite ally and is currently preparing to launch protests in Shiite cities to oust Maliki. The Anbar demonstrations (in west Baghdad), which were launched more than 10 days ago, began to reveal a troubled relationship between the two parties. In fact, a senior tribal leader told a group of Sadr's aids, "If Sadr does not join, there will be voices calling once again for secession (the Sunni secession or the formation of independent provinces), and we will not be able to mute these voices this time.” Prime Minister Maliki faced major political confrontations with Sunni political representatives in the months that followed the US withdrawal from Iraq. In fact, one of their senior commanders accused Tariq al-Hashemi of being involved in acts of violence. During the same period, Maliki fought an open conflict with the Kurds over power in the disputed areas in northern Iraq, as well as an equally important struggle with his Shiite allies (in southern Iraq) to prove that he is the most representative of this community and that he deserves a third term, which was strongly rejected by Sadr. With the failure of efforts aimed at dismissing Maliki through a former political alliance between Kurdistan regional leader Massoud Barzani, Sunni-backed Iraqiya List leader Iyad Allawi and Sadr, the demonstrations that recently started in Anbar reshuffled the cards through an alliance that is in the offing between Sadr and influential Sunni clerics led by Sheikh Abdul-Malik al-Saadi. A couple of hours were enough for the septuagenarian Sheikh Saadi to completely change the tone of the Anbar demonstrations. He returned on a wheelchair from his residence in Amman, Jordan, and directly headed to the square of demonstrations. He changed the gathering from a rally of Saddam Hussein's fans — who held up photos of the dictator and flags from his reign — into a demonstration characterized by Shiite slogans. Participants raised post-American occupation flags and adopted realistic goals, which did not mention the restoration of the previous rule and criticized terrorism. Over the past two days, Sadr and Saadi made phone calls and had their delegations hold talks in preparation for a direct meeting between the two in order for Shiite cities to begin demonstrations against Maliki, if not to oust him. Based on Sadr’s demands, these demonstrations will force him to give up on running for a third term in the 2014 elections. Ironically enough, when Maliki launched a war on Sadr's militia in 2008 and 2009, the Sunnis described him as a "national hero." Maliki remained a hero to them until the 2010 elections, when he failed to win the Sunni votes in the elections as he had expected, and then fought a year-long struggle with their political representatives to win a second term. Today, the Sunnis share just as many differences as they do common goals with Sadr. The two parties have detainees in prison and they both hope that they will be released by a general amnesty. They both believe that Maliki monopolizes power in a bid to serve the interests of his party and his close associates. Moreover, they both have a close relationship with Turkey, a strategic ally of Barzani. However, there are major differences between the two parties, including deep ideological differences in doctrine and in their interpretations of religious history. These differences also include the fact that Sadr presents himself as a political cleric, or as his supporters put it: a "leader" who combines religious authority with political power, just like the Iranian regime that the Sunnis oppose. But when Sadr went to Iran after 2008 to study, his personality significantly changed. His close associates say that this resulted from his experience with the mistakes of Iran's ruling theory. In fact, when he returned to Iraq he adopted a different viewpoint regarding the relationship between the Shiite majority and the Sunni minority and described it as a "tolerant relationship," rather than a "hostile" one. Moreover, he started saying that "Maliki's entire policy is offensive to the Shiites because it portrays them as a tyrannical majority in the eyes of the Kurds and the Sunnis." Sadr concluded a press conference by saying that "Iraq is not only composed of Shiites, but of Sunnis, Kurds, Turkmen, Christians, Mandaeans and Jews as well.” The Sunnis got that message, embraced it and translated it into demonstrations. Thus, they turned the former militia leader into a new Shiite hero who perceives them as partners, not followers.