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BAGHDAD: The United States and its Iraqi allies will have to do more than push Moqtada al-Sadr out of a mosque to meet the challenge posed by his movement, according to his followers.
By tapping anti-US sentiment, a generational divide in Iraq's Shia establishment and the desperation of an underclass of urban poor, the radical cleric has ensured his appeal will remain even if he is forced to go underground.
Sadr vanished from the Imam Ali mosque in the holy city of Najaf on Friday, scene of a two-week-old standoff with US-led forces surrounding the shrine.
One of his aides, who declined to be identified, said the 30-year-old cleric was not in the shrine as his Mehdi Army militia prepared to hand over the mosque to representatives of Ali al-Sistani.
Sistani is the most powerful ayatollah in the Hawza, a collegiate body of Najaf clerics which Sadr has tried to undermine in the power vacuum in postwar Iraq.
In his latest challenge to the US-backed interim government and clerical authorities, Sadr has led a rebellion with the help of aides whose backgrounds reveal much about his politics.
Sadr's methods have angered wealthier members of the Shia majority and other Shia parties with strong followings, but he has won support from younger men who see him as a voice for change among a clergy they feel has let them down.
"We will remain behind Moqtada. He is still a holy warrior even if he leaves the shrine and becomes less visible," said Bassem Huleili, a policeman from Baghdad's Sadr City shantytown.
Young men such as these are disillusioned with a religious hierarchy led by Iranian-born Sistani, who wants to keep the clergy out of politics and is seen as incapable of improving the lot of the poor.
"Sayyed Moqtada (al-Sadr): don't pay attention to the elderly clerics, they are spies," shouted an unemployed youth carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher in Sadr City as he celebrated an attack that destroyed a US Humvee on Friday.
CHAMPION: Sadr has failed to offer a clear ideological alternative to challenge the older generation, but he can still draw on his ancestry as the eldest surviving son of a revered figure to enhance his credibility as a champion of Shia rights.
His father was Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, who paid with his life for defying Saddam. Two brothers and an uncle suffered similar fates.
Shia scholar Ali al-Ubudi said Sadr's anti-occupation message was a powerful one, but did not enjoy support from the establishment and merchant class.
Businessmen say Sadr has hurt his own cause by letting his followers attack infrastructure such as oil pipelines.
The Iraq war helped Sadr's rise. In the chaos following the fall of Saddam, Sadr galvanized a group of radical clerics, seeing his chance to carve out his own power base in post-war Iraq by challenging the existing order.
Among his aides is Mohammad Yacoubi, a graduate of the Najaf seminaries who has tried to limit the influence of the established hierarchy, most of whose members were born in Iran. Another highly-educated aide is Ali al-Sumeisem, a student of Ali Baghdadi, a critic of Sistani. Sistani and other elders control cash. Sadr is wanted by US-backed Iraqi authorities in connection with the murder last year of moderate cleric Abdul Majid al-Khoei, son of Ayatollah Mohammad Abu al-Qassim Khoei, whose London-based organization controls the bulk of Shia religious finances. Sadr denies the charges.-Reuters
