2003 Shortly after the US-led coalition
ousted Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath regime, al-Sadr voiced opposition to the
Coalition Provisional Authority. He subsequently stated that he had more legitimacy than the Coalition-appointed
Iraqi Governing Council. He granted his first major Western television interview to
Bob Simon of
60 Minutes, in which al-Sadr famously said "Saddam was the little serpent, but America is the big serpent." In May 2003, al-Sadr passed a
fatwa that became known as the
al-Hawasim (meaning 'the finalists' – a term used to refer to the looters of post-invasion Iraq). The fatwa allowed looting and racketeering on the condition that the perpetrators take their share from
harbiyyun, and pay the requisite
khums to the remaining office of Muhammad al-Sadr, saying that "looters could hold on to what they had appropriated so long as they made a donation (khums) of one-fifth of its value to their local Sadrist office." The fatwa alienated many older members of his father's movement, and the Shia establishment and property-owning classes from the Sadrists. It has been claimed that the original fatwa itself was actually issued by Sadr's advisor
Grand Ayatollah Kazem Husseini Haeri, and that al-Sadr was simply passing on the same ruling, as al-Sadr himself is not a
Mujtahid, but himself a follower of Haeri.
2004 In his 2004 sermons and public interviews, al-Sadr repeatedly demanded an immediate withdrawal of all US-led coalition forces, all foreign troops under
United Nations control, and the establishment of a new central Iraqi government, not connected to the Ba'ath party or the
Allawi government. In late March 2004, American authorities (
759th MP Battalion) in Iraq shut down Sadr's newspaper
al-Hawza on charges of inciting violence. Sadr's followers held demonstrations protesting the closure of the newspaper. On 4 April, fighting broke out in Najaf, Sadr City, and Basra. Sadr's Mahdi Army took over several points and attacked coalition soldiers, killing dozens of foreign soldiers, and taking many casualties of their own in the process. At the same time, Sunni rebels in the cities of Baghdad,
Samarra,
Ramadi, and, most notably,
Fallujah, staged uprisings as well, causing the most serious challenge to American control of Iraq up to that time. During the
first siege of Fallujah in late March and April 2004, Muqtada's Sadrists sent aid convoys to the besieged Sunnis there.
Paul Bremer, then the US administrator in Iraq, declared on 5 April 2004 that al-Sadr was an outlaw and that uprisings by his followers would not be tolerated. That day, al-Sadr called for a
jihad against American forces. To do this he needed to gain temporary control of
Al Kut,
An Najaf and the suburb of Baghdad named after his grandfather,
Sadr City. On the night of 8 April, his
Mahdi Army dropped eight overspans and bridges around the Convoy Support Center Scania, thus severing northbound traffic into Baghdad. The next day his militia ambushed any and every convoy trying to get in or out of
Baghdad International Airport, known to the soldiers as BIAP. This led to the worst convoy ambush of the war, the
ambush of the 724th Transportation Company (POL), which resulted in eight
KBR drivers killed and three soldiers killed. One was
Matt Maupin, who was initially listed as the first American soldier missing in action. These series of attacks demonstrated an unexpected level of sophistication in planning. The Mahdi Army knew it could not win a head on fight with the United States military coalition and it took full advantage of a major American vulnerability by attacking convoy trucks that supplied the troops. BIAP was where the newly arrived
1st Cavalry Division drew its supplies. The 1st Cavalry Division was replacing the
1st Armored Division in and around Baghdad. The 1st Armored Division as well as 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which was attached to 1st Armored Division, had already been deployed to Iraq for a year.
CENTCOM commander General
John Abizaid decided to extend the Division beyond its 1-year deployment, for an additional 120 days, to use in the fight against the Mahdi Army. On 11 April, the Mahdi Army launched an attack on the southwest wall at BIAP behind which several hundred trucks parked. By the end of April, the American 1st Armored Division had suppressed the Mahdi Army's uprising
2005–2006 It is generally frowned upon in Iraq for clerics to actively participate in secular politics, and like the other leading religious figures, Muqtada al-Sadr did not run in the
2005 Iraqi elections. It is believed he implicitly backed the
National Independent Cadres and Elites party that was closely linked with the Mahdi Army. Many of his supporters, however, backed the far more popular
United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) of Grand Ayatollah Sistani. On 26 August 2005, an estimated 100,000 Iraqis marched in support of al-Sadr and his ideals. On 25 March 2006, Sadr was in his home and escaped a
mortar attack; this attack was disputed, as the ordnance landed more than 50 meters from his home. Sadr's considerable leverage was apparent early in the week of 16 October 2006, when Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki ordered the release of one of Sadr's senior aides. The aide had been arrested a day earlier by American troops on suspicion of participating in kidnappings and killings.
2007 On 13 February, several sources in the US government claimed that Muqtada al-Sadr had left Iraq and fled to Iran in anticipation of the coming
security crackdown. US military spokesman Maj. Gen.
William B. Caldwell reinforced this account on 14 February, but a member of Iraq's parliament and an aide to al-Sadr denied the claims. On 30 March it was reported that Sadr, through clerics speaking on his behalf, "delivered a searing speech ... condemning the American presence in Iraq ... [and] call[ing] for an anti-occupation mass protest on April 9." This call to protest was significant in that, since the beginning of the
American troop surge (which began on 14 February 2007), al-Sadr had ordered his "militia to lie low during the new Baghdad security plan so as not to provoke a direct confrontation with the Americans". On 25 April 2007, Sadr condemned the construction of
Azamiyah wall around a Sunni neighbourhood in Baghdad, by calling for demonstrations against the plan as a sign of "the evil will" of American "occupiers" On 25 May 2007, Sadr delivered a sermon to an estimated 6,000 followers in
Kufa. Sadr reiterated his condemnation of the United States' occupation of Iraq and demanded the withdrawal of foreign forces, al-Sadr's speech also contained calls for unity between Sunni and Shi'a. In June 2007, al-Sadr vowed to go ahead with a planned march to the devastated
Askariyya shrine in central Iraq, al-Sadr said the march was aimed at bringing Shi'is and Sunnis closer together and breaking down the barriers imposed by the Americans and Sunni religious extremists. In a statement issued 29 August 2007, Muqtada al-Sadr announced that an order to stand down for six months had been distributed to his loyalists following the deaths of more than 50 Shia Muslim pilgrims during
fighting in Karbala the day before. The statement issued by Sadr's office in Najaf said: "I direct the Mahdi army to suspend all its activities for six months until it is restructured in a way that helps honour the principles for which it is formed." The intention behind the ceasefire was thought in part to be to allow al-Sadr reassert control over the movement, which is thought to have splintered. "We call on all Sadrists to observe self-restraint, to help security forces control the situation and arrest the perpetrators and sedition mongers, and urge them to end all forms of armament in the sacred city," said the statement, referring to the 28 August clashes in Karbala. Asked if the unexpected order meant no attacks on American troops, as well as a ban on Shia infighting, a senior Sadr aide said: "All kinds of armed actions are to be frozen, without exception."
2008–2011 In March 2008, during the
Battle of Basra, the
Sadr Movement launched a nationwide civil disobedience campaign across Iraq to protest raids and detentions against the Mahdi Army. In August 2008, Sadr ordered most of his militiamen to disarm but said he will maintain elite fighting units to resist the Americans if a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops is not established. "Weapons are to be exclusively in the hands of one group, the resistance group," while another group called
Momahidoun is to focus on social, religious and community work, Sadrist cleric Mudhafar al-Moussawi said. In response to
Israeli
attacks on Gaza, al-Sadr called for reprisals against US troops in Iraq: "I call upon the honest Iraqi resistance to carry out revenge operations against the great accomplice of the Zionist enemy." On 1 May 2009, al-Sadr paid a surprise visit to
Ankara where, in his first public appearance for two years, he met with
Turkish President Abdullah Gül and
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for talks that focused on the "political process" and requested Turkey play a greater role in establishing stability in the
Middle East. Spokesman Sheikh Salah al-Obeidi confirmed the nature of the talks that had been requested by al-Sadr and stated, "Turkey is a good, old friend. Trusting that, we had no hesitation in travelling here." After the meeting al-Sadr visited supporters in
Istanbul, where al-Obeidi says they may open a representative office. In a press conference on 6 March 2010, ahead of the
2010 Iraqi parliamentary election, Sadr called on all Iraqis to participate in the election and support those who seek to
expel US troops out of the country. Sadr warned that any interference by the United States will be unacceptable. On 5 January 2011, Sadr returned to the Iraqi city of
Najaf in order to take a more proactive and visible role in the new Iraqi government. Three days later, thousands of Iraqis turned out in Najaf to hear his first speech since his return, in which he called the US, Israel, and the UK "common enemies" against Iraq. His speech was greeted by the crowd chanting "Yes, yes for Muqtada! Yes, yes for the leader!" while waving Iraqi flags and al-Sadr's pictures. Subsequently, he returned to Iran to continue his studies. By late 2011, it appeared that the United States would largely withdraw from Iraq, a demand that helped make Sadr a popular leader amongst supporters almost immediately following the invasion. Sadr also controlled the largest bloc of parliament, and had reached a sort of détente with prime minister Nouri al Maliki, who needed Sadrist support to retain his post. ==Post-US withdrawal==