Posted by
Dawnsblood on Saturday, January 13, 2007 11:32:46 PM
He has ordered his men to stand down and blend in.
Mahdi Army militia members have stopped wearing their black
uniforms, hidden their weapons and abandoned their checkpoints in an
apparent effort to lower their profile in Baghdad in advance of the
arrival of U.S. reinforcements.
"We have explicit directions to keep a low profile . . . not to
confront, not to be dragged into a fight and to calm things down," said
one official who received the orders from the anti-American Shiite
cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Al-Sadr heads the Mahdi Army, Iraq's largest Shiite militia, headquartered in Najaf.
The official asked not to be named because he was not authorized to reveal the militia's plans.
Militia members say al-Sadr ordered them to stand down shortly
after President George Bush's announcement that the U.S. would send
17,500 more American troops to Baghdad to work alongside the Iraqi
security forces.
The decision by al-Sadr to lower his force's profile in Baghdad
will likely cut violence in the city and allow American forces to show
quick results from their beefed up presence. But it is also unlikely in
the long term to change the balance of power here. Mahdi Army
militiamen say that while they remain undercover now, they are simply
waiting for the security plan to end.
The ball is in our court now. Allahpundit has more.
They’ve moved their heavy weaponry out of Sadr City too, allegedly.