BAGHDAD: Powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr on Tuesday slammed Iraq’s government as corrupt and its leader as a “tyrant” while calling on citizens to vote, days after announcing his exit from politics.
The televised speech seemed aimed at establishing the cleric, who leaped to prominence with his fierce criticism of the 2003 US-led invasion, as a figure above the everyday Iraqi political fray.
“Politics became a door for injustice and carelessness, and the abuse and humiliation of the rule of a dictator and tyrant who controls the funds, so he loots them... and the cities, so he attacks them, and the sects, so he divides them,” Sadr said.
He was apparently referring to Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, whom he has repeatedly criticized in the past.
Sadr called on Iraqis to vote in parliamentary elections that are now a little more than two months away.
Iraqis “must participate in these elections in a major way, so that the government does not fall into the hands of the dishonest,” Sadr said.
He also reaffirmed his weekend announcement that he was separating himself from his powerful political movement, which holds dozens of parliamentary seats and six ministerial posts.
“I will remain for all — not for the Sadrists only, for I dedicated myself to Iraq and to Islam,” Sadr said in comments indicating he still could play an influential role in Iraq’s political future.
And he had harsh words on the state of Iraq, saying that there is “no agriculture and no industry and no security and safety and no peace.”
Sadr’s rise was aided by the reputations of two famed relatives — including his father, Mohammed Sadiq Al-Sadr — who were killed during Saddam Hussein’s rule.
Sadr was also the commander of the Mahdi Army, a widely-feared militia that battled US forces and played a key role in the brutal sectarian conflict in which thousands of people were killed.
He later suspended the militia’s activities and in recent years his focus has increasingly shifted to religious studies in both Iran and Iraq that have taken him out of the country for extended periods of time.
Moqtada slams govt, ‘tyrant’ PM
Moqtada slams govt, ‘tyrant’ PM
Syria says detained senior Daesh jihadist in Damascus
- The arrest came less than two weeks after a December 13 attack killed two US soldiers
DAMASCUS: Syrian authorities have arrested a senior Daesh group official in the Damascus region in a joint operation with a US-led international coalition, a security official said on Wednesday.
Taha Al-Zoubi, also known as Abu Omar Tabiya, an Daesh leader in Damascus, was detained with several of his men, General Ahmad Al-Dalati was reported as saying by state news agency SANA.
The arrest came less than two weeks after a December 13 attack killed two US soldiers and a US civilian that Washington said was carried out by a lone Daesh gunman in central Syria’s Palmyra.
“Our specialized units, in cooperation with the General Intelligence Directorate and and International Coalition forces, carried out a precise security operation targeting” an Daesh hideout, Dalati said.
On December 20, a Syria monitor said that five Daesh members were killed in US strikes in retaliation for the December 13 attack.
It was the first such incident since the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar Assad in December last year, and Syrian authorities said the perpetrator was a security forces member who was due to be fired for his “extremist Islamist ideas.”
