Fight Americans, Not Iraqis

[Christina]

AL-SADR TO FOLLOWERS: FIGHT AMERICANS, NOT IRAQISApril 9, 2007CNN reports: “A powerful and radical Shiite cleric implored his followers Sunday to stop killing Iraqis and focus their violent efforts on ousting American forces from the war-torn nation.Muqtada al-Sadr also called on Iraqi forces to join the insurgents in the battle against ‘the occupiers.’The firebrand cleric's mandate came as a Baghdad security spokesman announced that a ban on civilian vehicular traffic will go into effect Monday, the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad.The 24-hour vehicle ban is slated to begin at 5 a.m. (10 p.m. Sunday ET), Baghdad security operations spokesman Gen. Qassim Atta said on Iraqi state television.South of the capital, in Diwaniya, U.S. and Iraqi forces were in their third day of battling al-Sadr's Mehdi Army.Meanwhile, caravans of the cleric's followers were converging on Najaf, south of Diwaniya, for an anti-American demonstration scheduled there Monday at al-Sadr's behest.They walked through the streets Sunday chanting in Arabic, ‘No, no to the occupiers; yes, yes to Islam’ and ‘Iraq will always be independent and free of occupiers,’ police said.Najaf is an al-Sadr stronghold and a Shiite hub.Authorities are stepping up security and checkpoints to prepare for the influx of al-Sadr supporters, Najaf police said.In a statement -- attributed to al-Sadr and released in Najaf on Sunday -- the cleric purportedly said insurgents should not be killing Iraqis and that Iraqi police and troops should be on the side of the militias.‘You, the Iraqi army and police forces, do not walk alongside the occupiers because they are your enemy,’ it said. ‘I am here to advise you the honest resister hopes for two thing from God: either victory or martyrdom. But at the same time, the honest resister should not kill a fellow Iraqi.’The statement also carried a message to the Mehdi Army forces in Diwaniya: ‘My brothers in the Mehdi Army and my brothers in the Iraqi security forces, stop fighting each other. This will be an accomplishment in our enemy's scheme.’…”

 

[Christina]

I also a story on CNN that shorly after his speech thousand Iraqi's showed up in street waving Iranin flags and burning U.S. flags