Reply #16: He's in KUFA, about 100 miles South of Baghdad, Fallujah is West [View All]

[ConcernedCanuk]

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Radical sheikh throws down gauntlet

By Jeffrey Gettleman
Kufa, Iraq

April 7, 2004

The Grand Mosque of Kufa has now become the grand arsenal.

As US authorities issued an arrest warrant for Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric who set off the most serious insurrection so far against the occupation forces, hundreds of his supporters were busy fortifying the mosque, bracing for a US invasion.

Sheikh Sadr has barricaded himself inside the golden brick walls, refusing to surrender. Members of his militia prowl the streets, staring down the sights of machine-guns, building fighting positions in and around the mosque, the town's biggest, and pointing rocket-propelled grenades at the highway heading north - the road they expect to see US forces come rumbling down.

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Kufa, 160 kilometres south of Baghdad with a population of 110,000, is the first Iraqi city to spin entirely out of occupation control. The town is a stronghold of conservative Shiite beliefs.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/06/1081222467488.html