Al Sadr is back in Iran, say US military officials

Baghdad: Fiery Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr has gone back to neighbouring Iran, US military officials in Baghdad said yesterday.

Earlier this year, US officials said the anti-American cleric was hiding in Iran to avoid a major security crackdown in Baghdad, although his aides say he never left Iraq.

"Our sources do show Moqtada in Iran," one US military source said, declining to speculate on why Al Sadr had gone back.

A senior aide to Al Sadr denied the cleric had left Iraq. Al Sadr disappeared from public view shortly before the launch of a US-led offensive in Baghdad in February but re-emerged in the city of Kufa on May 25.

Asserting authority

Analysts had speculated Sadr had returned to reassert his authority over his Mahdi Army militia, which the US military says has begun breaking into splinter groups.

The United States accuses Iran of fuelling sectarian violence with its support for Shiite militias such as the Mahdi Army. Tehran rejects this, accusing Washington of fomenting instability in the region.

Al Sadr has said nothing about where he had been while he was out of public view for months other than to describe it as a 'successful disappearance'.

His lower profile has coincided with a growing rift between his movement and Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki.

Al Sadr pulled his six ministers out of Al Maliki's cabinet in April when the prime minister refused to set a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

The cleric's political bloc has boycotted parliament since an attack on a revered Shiite mosque last month in the city of Samarra and most recently rejected a landmark draft oil law.

Al Sadr led two uprisings against US forces in 2004 before becoming more involved in mainstream politics.