May

31

People of Iraq rally against US troop

Filed Under General | Posted By Jennifer Sullivan |

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Thousands of people heeded a call from anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to protest talks between Washington and Baghdad on keeping US troops in Iraq beyond 2008, but turnout on Friday was lower than past marches.

Its one of the largest demonstrations, several thousands of people are on streets in the Baghdad district of Sadr City and they held up pictures of Prime Minister dressed as Saddam Hussein

In the kadhimiya district in the northwest Baghdad, people marched behind a banner asking the UN to stand with the Iraqis people against this security deal between the government and the occupation.

Explaining the relatively low numbers, spokesmen for Sadr’s movement said the protests were widely spread through the country but security forces prevented marches in some areas. The United States, which invaded in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein, now has 155,000 troops in Iraq.

Around 1200 people marched from the Grand Mosque in Kut 95 miles southeast of the capital to the Sadr office. In a statement on his website, he said there was a “national consensus to reject many points raised by the American side as they infringe national sovereignty.”

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the biggest Shi’ite group in Maliki’s government, also criticized the planned agreement on a troop extension.

Saad al-Maliki, head of the Sadr office in Kut, said: “As long as there is life, these people marched until this agreement is cancelled. Demonstrators marched and chanting “Out, out occupier and Iraq won’t be an American Colony”



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