Heeding the Call Of The Cleric

YURI KOZYREV FOR TIME
PROTECTED: Al-Sadr is flanked by his bodyguards in Kufa on Friday

Muqtada! Muqtada! Muqtada!" The chants of the faithful drown out the gunfire around the mosque in Kufa. Thousands have gathered to hear Muqtada al-Sadr, Iraq's best-known rebel cleric, lead Friday prayers. A fire fight is raging for control of a nearby bridge, between members of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and U.S. forces. There's another battle up the road in al-Sadr's hometown, Najaf. As the mosque broadcasts reports of glorious victories over U.S. tanks, the worshippers seem unmoved by the fighting. "The U.S. troops do this every Friday," says one of the faithful, Sheik Halim al-Fatlawi. "The Americans want to terrorize us into not coming to prayers."

For the past six weeks, Kufa and the two cities that house the holiest shrines of Shi'as, Najaf and Karbala, have been the center of al-Sadr's revolt. His militia claim to be protecting the shrines from U.S. forces that have besieged the cities. U.S. commanders insist al-Sadr is a small-time threat whose appeal is limited to a ragtag bunch of angry young men. But judging by the number and intensity of worshippers thronging the mosque in Kufa last Friday, the U.S. may be underestimating the rebel leader. In fact, the more the U.S. aims its guns at al-Sadr, the more popular he seems to become. According to a recent poll, he is now second in popularity to the Grand Ayatullah Ali Husaini Sistani, the Shi'ites' spiritual leader.

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Al-Sadr's adherents use their intimate knowledge of the terrain to outwit the Americans. As supporters stream from Baghdad 90 miles south to Kufa for Friday prayers, U.S. troops finally manage to cut the road just outside the city. In response, locals begin flagging down approaching cars, warning drivers of the checkpoints ahead and showing them how to avoid the blockade by taking a circuitous side route. Later, when U.S. troops close the road between Kufa and Najaf, prayergoers snake around back streets, along dusty trails and through a massive garbage dump. The mounds of trash give cars almost perfect cover as they slip into Kufa in time for prayers.

The crowd at the mosque erupts when al-Sadr appears. At 30, he is pudgy and pale faced. He stands at the lectern draped in his burial shroud, a symbol of his determination to die for his faith. He reads his address at high speed, his head down, his body occasionally rocking from side to side. Al-Sadr speaks to the crowd with no rhetorical flourishes or demagogic appeals but makes his purpose plain just the same. He takes a swipe at the Shi'ite hierarchy, which has withheld its support for his uprising. "When I die," he says, "don't let my death stop the resistance. Continue with the struggle and never disband the Mahdi Army."

Al-Sadr seems almost to be courting death at U.S. hands, knowing that it, more than anything else, would spark a broad Shi'ite insurgency. His followers call him "the living shahid," or martyr, according to Fatah al-Sheikh, editor of the pro al-Sadr newspaper Ishraqatal Sadr. If the Americans ever do kill al-Sadr, al-Sheikh says, they will be faced with a "revolution that will never end." Al-Sadr's supporters, he adds, "will kill all Americans, civilians or otherwise."

As al-Sadr speaks, guards keep watch over the city from ramparts high above the courtyard, which, despite the brutal sun, are also packed to overflowing. Virtually every male in the city carries a combat weapon, even vendors who sell food and trinkets outside the mosque walls. As prayers draw to an end, the gunfire and occasional loud explosion seem to be getting closer. As soon as they finish, the Mahdi militia looses a salvo of Katyusha rockets at the U.S. base less than a mile away.

Then al-Sadr sweeps out to his waiting convoy. "Turn your back to the mosque," a gunman orders a journalist as al-Sadr heads for his vehicle. Outsiders are not allowed to see which one he gets into. Al-Sadr's bodyguards and escorts race to their cars. One of them, a cleric in a turban and a long robe, totes a light machine gun and nods politely as he trots by. While the rest of the crowd disperses, the mosque loudspeaker system calls for blood donors.

Al-Sadr has experienced a remarkable shift in fortune. A couple of months ago, he was a marginal nuisance. But since launching its uprising in April, his militia has turned southern Iraq into a grinding standoff for the overwhelmingly superior coalition forces. U.S. officials say the Mahdi Army has perhaps 5,000 fighters nationwide, but last Friday there were almost that many in Kufa and nearby Najaf, 6 miles away.

The Mahdi Army's tactics are simple but effective. Hajji Ali, 38, is a former history teacher from Sadr City, al-Sadr's stronghold in Baghdad. He commands a small group of fighters in Najaf and explains how they operate. "I came with 10 men, and the commanders here gave me a part of the city to defend," he says. "When the Americans advance, we harass and retreat, fire from new positions and then retreat again. If the attacking force is too big, we call for support." In the past month, three in his unit have been killed and five injured, he says. Other fighters say they are receiving help and advice from former soldiers of Saddam Hussein's army but not, they insist, from the hard-core units that massacred Shi'ites after their abortive 1991 uprising.