(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-04-25 07:11

Backing a Mahdi Army uprising would allow Tehran to effectively play both sides in a Shiite showdown.

A flurry of recent statements by al-Sadr has emphasized his first public role: as a firebrand militia leader after the US-led invasion in 2003.

In a statement posted Saturday on his Web site, al-Sadr gave a "final warning" to the government to halt its crackdown or face an "open war until liberation."

Senior Mahdi Army commanders, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss strategy with media, said they have taken delivery of new Iranian weapons, including sophisticated roadside bombs, Grad rockets and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles.

The militia's top field commanders, they said, were senior members of the special groups.

One commander, who identified himself by his nickname Abu Dhara al-Sadri, said scores of militia fighters were prepared to carry out suicide bombings against US forces. Suicide bombings are the signature attacks of Sunni militants in Iraq's conflict, but the tactic was introduced against Americans in Lebanon by Shiite militants in the 1980s.

Sadrist lawmakers and aides have sent compromise-seeking proposals to al-Sadr in Qom. The ideas seek to appease al-Maliki enough to forestall his threat: barring al-Sadr's followers from running in this fall's key provincial elections unless al-Sadr disbands the Mahdi Army.

But the proposals have gone unanswered, said al-Sadr's aides.

One offer, they said, would allow for creation of a new political party with no formal links to the Mahdi Army. Another would permit candidates sympathetic to the Sadrists -- but with no direct links -- to run as independents in the fall election.

One of the authors of the proposals, moderate cleric Riyadh al-Nouri, was gunned down April 11 in Najaf, the spiritual center for Shiites in Iraq. The reason for the slaying was not clear.

Lawmakers and politicians told the AP that al-Sadr's more belligerent tone is motivated, in part, by his wish to secure a place for himself in history as a nationalist leader and anger over the recent arrests of hundreds of supporters despite his unilateral cease-fire.

At talks this month in Qom between al-Sadr and former Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the young cleric vowed never to disband the Mahdi Army while US and other foreign forces remain in Iraq, according to Shiite political figures familiar with the meetings.

Al-Jaafari has said he was mediating an accommodation between al-Sadr and al-Maliki's government.

Salah al-Obeidi, al-Sadr's chief spokesman in Iraq, acknowledged that al-Sadr and the Iranians were at present bound by close ties and common goals.

However, he was quick to add that while al-Sadr and the Iranians shared common interests -- namely fighting the Americans in Iraq -- the cleric was nobody's puppet.

Vali Nasr, an expert on Shiite politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, said the Iranians may want al-Sadr to stay in Qom to keep him in check for the moment.

"Muqtada is forcing everyone's hand right now when they (the Iranians) may not be wanting their hand forced," said Nasr.

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