US move to locate Al Sadr?

Baghdad: Kufa, a town near the Shiite holy city of Najaf and a sanctuary for anti-American Shiite leader Moqtada Al Sadr is shrouded in mystery as his whereabouts and speculation about whether he has fled take centre stage.

The US military is saying the Shiite militia leader has fled to Iran, while his supporters insist that he is still in Iraq.

Mousa, a prominent leader in the armed militia of Al Sadr's movement, the Mahdi Army, told Gulf News, "The Mahdi Army took some measures to ensure Kufa's safety from spies who could pass on information to Americans about Moqtada Al Sadr's house.

"These measures have increased since his emergence in Kufa last June and after the recent offensive statements made by Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki against Al Sadr and the Mahdi Army."

Speculation has turned into central discussions on the streets of Iraq.

Some Iraqis are satisfied with the current official stance against the Mahdi Army yet this development, concerning Al Sadr's fate, raises fears among the people of a deteriorating security situation.

Kufa is a town of Shiite clerics and filled with religious schools. Students are accused by American intelligence reports of being a stronghold for Iranian intelligence officers who are in charge of securing the safety of Al Sadr.

Munder Al Alami, a second line leader in the Al Sadr movement, thinks that Americans might have succeeded in recruiting some Shiites to monitor Kufa and get to the leader's house.

He said to Gulf News: "The leader, Al Sadr, has minimised his moves for that reason. What we fear is that Americans are conspiring and have a plot to locate precisely where Al Sadr is staying by asking Shiite officials to meet the leader, this meeting is a compass to guide Americans to his house and then to bomb it later."

Jasem Mohammad Al Quraishi, an Iraqi researcher on Al Sadr affairs, told Gulf News, "There may be a deal between Shiite parties and Americans to get rid of Al Sadr. I think some Shiite leaders want this and they might use Americans to achieve this goal, beside Americans themselves are likely to accept facilitating the operation because they believe that eliminating Al Sadr is abolishing Iranian influence in Iraq."

"Anyways, the hypothesis of Shiite -American cooperation to assassinate the Shiite leader might start off a Shiite-Shiite strife and this is what Americans are looking for, strategically to weaken Shiites in Iraq," Al Quraishi added.