Sadr increase support for Jaafari following Sadr City attacksnote

Sources close to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr says the attacks that targeted Sadr City in Baghdad yesterday (12/3/06) will make him increase his support for PM Ibrahim Jaafari against both the Qaeda and the Americans. Sadr accuses the Qaeda of going ahead with its plans to provoke a sectarian strife in Iraq between the Sunnis and Shiites. However, Sadr will continue his efforts with Sunni scholars to foil such a plot. He accuses the Americans of trying to benefit from these attacks to bring him under control. Most recently, the US Military Command waged a campaign against the Sadr Movement and considered it as the most “dangerous enemy” of the US presence in Iraq (see IIR 060301). Sadr refuses to make any relation with the Americans until they declare a timetable for complete withdrawal from Iraq. Meanwhile, he will order his Army of the Mahdi to tighten its security measures inside the Sadr City.