{"id":1828,"date":"2008-08-06T05:09:07","date_gmt":"2008-08-06T05:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2008-08-06T05:11:09","modified_gmt":"2008-08-06T05:11:09","slug":"alsadr_declares","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=1828","title":{"rendered":"Al-Sadr Declares Victory, Disarms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Back in March, when Maliki was starting to pressure Al-Sadr militarily, I stated that &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.windsofchange.net\/archives\/i_dont_think_winning_sides_in_battle_make_many_offers.php\" target=\"browser\">I Don&#8217;t Think Winning Sides In Battle Make Many Offers<\/a>&#8220;. Many of the antiwar commentators slammed me pretty strongly.So, today&#8230;&#8221;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/2008\/aug\/06\/iraq.foreignpolicy?gusrc=rss&#038;feed=networkfront\" target=\"browser\">Iraqi militia leader to order followers to lay down their arms : Mahdi army will become social and political group<\/a>&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>The leader of one of the most powerful militias in Iraq, Moqtada al-Sadr, is to order his followers to disarm and transform themselves into a purely social and political organisation, according to a new strategy document published yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>\nSuch a shift would mark a significant step forward for US and Iraqi government attempts to pacify Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>\nSadr&#8217;s Mahdi army, committed to forcing US troops out of Iraq, has been behind much of the violence since the 2003 invasion. His forces have maintained a ceasefire since May.<\/p>\n<p>\nAccording to the document, a copy of which has been obtained by the Wall Street Journal and whose authenticity has been confirmed by a Mahdi army spokesman, Sheikh Salah al-Obeidi, the militia will concentrate in future on education, provision of social services and religion.<\/p>\n<p>\nIt tells Sadr&#8217;s followers that &#8220;it is not allowed to use arms at all&#8221;. Posters have been spotted around Baghdad saying the changes will be announced at Friday prayers.<\/p>\n<p>\nSadr&#8217;s shift comes after a crackdown by Iraqi forces on the Mahdi army in its Baghdad stronghold, Sadr City, as well as Amarrah and Basra in the south earlier this year.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8230;that&#8217;s the rabidly pro-war Guardian, BTW&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Al-Sadr stands down&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1828"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1828\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}