http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040409/wl_mideast_afp/us_iraq_sadr_040409194754Fri Apr 9, 3:47 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Army considered late last year arresting radical Shiite Muslim leader Moqtada Sadr, instigator of a major insurgency in Iraq (news - web sites), but changed its mind to avoid inflaming Iraq's Shiite majority.
Sadr has used the interim six months to put in place his militias, numbering between 3,000 and 6,000, according to Pentagon (news - web sites) figures, launching a violent campaign against US-led coalition forces in Iraq.
The escalation in violence last weekend led to a major US onslaught this week against the militias.
Military officials refuse to say clearly why the 1st Armored Division, earmarked last October to arrest Sadr, was never given the green light to do so.
At the time Sadr was wanted for alleged participation in last April's murder of a religious cleric, Abdel Majid al-Khoi. His militia, the Mehdi Army, had led a number of ambushes and attacks against US forces in Baghdad and Karbala.
"It's always better to resolve situations peacefully and to let the law enforcement process go forward," a defense official who asked not to be named told AFP Friday. An Iraqi judge has issued a warrant for Sadr's arrest.
"He made that decision for us when he and his forces attacked coalition forces and now what you're seeing is strong, resolute action to decisively defeat Sadr's militia," the official said.
The US-led coalition in Iraq vowed Wednesday to destroy the Mehdi Army against which it has launched an assault in several Iraqi towns and cities.
A senior defense official, asked why Sadr was not arrested last autumn, replied on condition of anonymity: "You make plans for all sorts of things. Not all of these plans get executed," according to a report by Knight Ridder Newspapers.
The US army's need to avoid inflaming Shiite opinion appears to have paralyzed its decision-making.
"There was the question of what happens if you arrest a religious figure in a somewhat unstable environment," he said.
Thus Sadr, aged around 30 and in favor of a strict interpretation of Islam, was left at liberty amid hopes -- now quashed -- that his influence would be contained by top religious leaders such as the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.
That seems to have rebounded on the US, although American officials in the past few days have sought to minimize the significance of Sadr's rebellion.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, several officials admit that the fresh upsurge in violence marks a crossroads for the US military, faced with an extremely complex situation, the riskiest since the ouster of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).
Coalition officials say Sadr represents just a fraction of Iraq's Shiites, who make up about 60 percent of the country's 25 million people.
Juan Cole of the University of Michigan, an expert on Iraq's Shiites, wrote in a recent essay that "perhaps a third of Iraqi Shiites are sympathetic to the radical Khomeini-like ideology" of Sadr, a reference to the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who brought Islamic rule to Iran.
Arresting Sar would probably "cause no end of trouble in coming months," said Cole told Knight Ridder.
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