Al-Sadr tries to regain clout

Some see desperation as the Shiite cleric calls for a unified protest of U.S. occupation

BAGHDAD, IRAQ -- With his powerful anti-American movement losing its footing amid U.S.-led round-ups and military operations, the Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is trying to recast himself in his one-time image as a national resistance figure for all Iraqis -- Shiite and Sunni alike.

In central Baghdad, a large billboard featuring Sadr's defiant visage proclaims: "I'm not Shiite/I'm not Sunni/But I am Iraqi."

Today, on the fourth anniversary of the U.S. conquest of Baghdad, Sadr has ordered his followers to unite in the holy city of Najaf in a "mammoth demonstration" against the U.S. military presence and to "raise the Iraqi flag above all others."

Iraqi legislators and regional experts see an element of desperation in Sadr's attempt to reposition his movement and maintain the power he has garnered in the last year.

In Sunni communities, Sadr's name has become synonymous with kidnappings and revenge killings. Among Shiites, his reputation has suffered slightly as cracks have appeared in his vast Mahdi Army militia and in the top leadership of his movement.

Not so long ago, Sadr's fiery anti-American rhetoric and appeal for unity garnered him support across the sectarian divide. In 2004, Mahdi Army fighters and Sunni insurgents banded together to fight U.S. troops in Fallujah.

Sadr has called for joint prayers between Sunnis and Shiites in the past, and the late leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Sunni, pointedly excluded him and his followers from his list of assassination targets in a 2005 statement.

Sadr disappeared from view following the announcement of the U.S.-Iraqi joint security plan for Baghdad. Sadr aides insist the cleric is still inside Iraq, but the U.S. military asserts he has fled to neighboring Iran. Meanwhile, the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who owes his position to Sadr backing, seemed to give its blessing to the U.S.-led crackdown on the Sadr militia and arrest of top leaders in his Mahdi Army.

Lying low backfires

Today, analysts and politicians doubt that a nationalist stance will restore his cross-sectarian appeal. Many think Sadr's intention is to repair fractures in his own movement.

Joost Hiltermann, Middle East director for the International Crisis Group think tank, said that Sadr's "lie-low" strategy has backfired among his more militant followers.

"Shiites who were targets [of sectarian violence] want to respond, and Muqtada is coming under more pressure to call for some kind of retaliation," Hiltermann said. The mass demonstrations are "one way of allowing people to let off steam."

Legislators say Monday's demonstration is an effort by Sadr to appear strong against the crackdown.

"Muqtada is hiding, and it has given a very bad picture to his followers and all Iraqis," said Mithal al-Alusi, a secular Sunni legislator. "His people don't believe in him. ... He's using April 9 as a day to clean his name, to come back within his movement."

Still, Iraq braced for a huge turnout that could spill over into the capital, where the government ordered an all-day curfew.

In Mahdi Army-controlled neighborhoods in Baghdad, sales of Iraqi flags soared as homes, stores and concrete blast walls were decked in the national colors of red, white and black. On the road south to Najaf, droves of Shiites waved the flags from truck beds.

In a related development, a statement purportedly from Sadr was passed to Najaf residents calling for Iraqi security forces to stop working with coalition forces and band together with all Iraqis against them. The statement came at the end of a three-day battle between U.S. and Iraqi forces and Mahdi Army fighters in Diwaniyah, south of Baghdad.