Protest marks the fall of Baghdad

Hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters waving Iraqi flags and calling for US forces to leave Iraq marched into the holy city of Najaf on Apr. 9, marking the fourth anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein. With security stepped up across the country and a 24-hour ban on vehicles in Baghdad and Najaf, the marchers responded to a call by the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has demanded that his militia increase its efforts to force the US to leave. Sunni and Shia clerics marched alongside each other. In Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, marchers filled the road between the city and the neighboring city of Kufa, having swarmed to the area from the capital and Shia towns and cities to the south. They poured toward the center of Najaf for the rally. Protesters draped themselves in Iraqi flags and waved them to symbolize national unity. Sadr was not present at the rally, having kept out of sight since the security crackdown in Baghdad. The US military has said it believes he is currently in Iran, though his supporters deny this and say he is still living in Iraq. The militant cleric issued a statement that was read at the protest. "So far, 48 months of anxiety, oppression and occupational tyranny have passed, four years which have only brought us more death, destruction and humiliation," the statement said. "Every day tens are martyred, tens are crippled, and every day we see and hear US interference in every aspect of our lives, which means that we are not sovereign, not independent and therefore not free.... This is what Iraq has harvested from the US invasion." Speaking against the backdrop of an Iraqi flag, a senior supporter of Sadr, the cleric Abdelhadi al-Mohammadawi, called on US forces to leave. His speech was interrupted by chants of "Leave, leave occupier" and "No, no, to the occupation." "We demand the exit of the occupier and withdrawal of the last American soldier and we also reject the existence of any kind of military bases," he said. In another speech, Nassar al-Rubaie, head of Sadr's bloc in parliament, said: "The enemy that is occupying our country is now targeting the dignity of the Iraqi people…. After four years of occupation, we have hundreds of thousands of people dead and wounded." Vehicles were not allowed near the march, and Baghdad had a day-long ban on traffic to prevent outbreaks of violence. Iraqi policemen and soldiers lined the path taken by the protesters, and there were no reports of violence during the day. Some Iraqi soldiers in uniform joined the march. Reacting to the plans for the rally, the government had quickly reinstated Apr. 9 as a holiday, just a day after it had decreed that it no longer would be a day off. Residents said that the angry, boisterous demonstration was the largest in Najaf, the heart of Shiite religious power, since the US-led invasion in 2003. In the four years of war, the only other person who has been able to call for protests of this scale has been Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most powerful Shiite cleric, who, like Sadr, has a home in Najaf. The protest was in some ways another challenge to the Shiite clerical hierarchy, showing that in the new Iraq, a young upstart like Sadr can command the huge numbers right in the backyard of venerable clerics like Sistani. Sadr has increasingly tapped into a powerful desire among Shiites to stand up forcefully to both the US presence and militant Sunnis, and to ignore calls for moderation from older clerics. A day before the rally in Najaf, Sadr issued a statement urging his followers not to attack fellow Iraqis but to turn all their efforts on US forces. "You, the Iraqi army and police forces, don't walk alongside the occupiers, because they are your archenemy," the statement said. "God has ordered you to be patient in front of your enemy, and unify your efforts against them–not against the sons of Iraq." Calling the US the "great evil," Sadr accused US forces of dividing Iraq by stoking violence. "My brothers in the Mahdi Army, and my brothers in the security services: enough fighting and rivalry, because that is only a success for our, and your, enemy," the statement said. "Infighting between brothers is not right, nor is it right to follow the dirty American sedition, or to defend… the occupier." He apparently issued the statement in response to three days of clashes between his Mahdi Army militiamen and US and Iraqi troops in Diwaniya, south of Baghdad. Sadr, a nationalist who has long called for a US withdrawal, is engaged in a delicate balancing act. His street power is largely derived from his opposition to the US occupation, yet his political bloc is also part of Iraq's ruling coalition, which is trying to stabilize the capital. Prior to the statement issued before the anniversary protest, he has ordered his fighters to stand down and not be provoked into battle as US troops patrol and conduct security sweeps.