Moqtada Al-Sadr may call off the ceasefire he declared six months ago. Al Sadr's Mahdi Army is the largest militia in Iraq. That ceasefire, more than anything, has led to the decline in violence in Iraq in recent months. (It wasn't the so-called "surge," in other words, but the stand-down of the Mahdi Army combined with paying off the Sunnis to pursue al-Qaeda.)
Al-Sadr, it is said, used the ceasefire to consolidate his control over the Mahdi Army. He's also used to time to go to Iran to get religious training so as to burnish his religious credentials. Note that US military spokesperson, Read Adr Gregory Smith, referred to Al-Sadr as al-Sayyid, which is a religious title.
Smith...said...that the cease-fire declared by al-Sadr's last August was good for the Iraqi people. "Al-Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr's cease-fire has been helpful in reducing violence and has led to improved security in Iraq. We would welcome the extension of the cease-fire as a positive step," he said, using an honorific reserved for descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.
Al-Sadr has it set up so that if he does nothing by Saturday, the ceasefire is off. He will issue a statement if it is to continue. An end to the ceasefire would be, to say the least, a negative development, with the potential for being catastrophic.
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