Reply #10: Not a good idea to repeat every story you might read somewhere as fact [View All]

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/02/18/iran.sadr/index.html

Where is al-Sadr? Not in Iran, official says

POSTED: 5:36 a.m. EST, February 21, 2007

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman denied Sunday that Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Iraqi Shiite cleric who opposes the U.S. presence in Iraq, is in Iran.

"Muqtada al-Sadr is not in Iran," Mohammad Ali Hosseini said, according to the semi-official Iran Labor News Agency.

Hosseini labeled as "propaganda" U.S. suggestions to the contrary, accusing the United States of waging a "psychological" war to pressure Iran.

Last week, an Iraqi government official said al-Sadr departed Iraq for Iran a few days earlier, just as coalition forces were staging security crackdowns on insurgents.

Sami al-Askari, a member of parliament and a political adviser to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, provided no details.

Earlier last week, Bush administration and U.S. military officials also said al-Sadr was in Iran and had been there for about two weeks. (Read the full story)

But on Sunday, White House Spokesman Tony Snow said he didn't know al-Sadr's whereabouts.

"It is unclear," Snow told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer." "It's pretty clear he's not holding press conferences and making his whereabouts known.

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSGRA02761420070810

U.S. commander says "he thinks" Iraqi cleric Sadr in Iran

Fri Aug 10, 2007 3:11pm EDT

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Powerful Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is in Iran and not in complete control of the militia that owe allegiance to him, the U.S. commander in Sadr's main stronghold in Baghdad said on Friday.

"I think he is now in Iran so just based on his location that implies that some of his control is not direct," Colonel John Castles said in a video conference from Baghdad with journalists in Washington. snip

Sadr was last seen in public in Iraq attending a religious ceremony in the holy city of Kufa on May 25, when he denounced the United States as part of an "evil trio" with Britain and Israel.

U.S. officials said at the time that they believed Sadr had been out of the country for the previous four months, and they said in July they believed he had left Iraq again.