Moqtada al-Sadr: Iraq’s powerful unpredictable cleric pulling the strings
Sadr gained widespread popularity in the months after the 2003 invasion and has repeatedly bowed out of politics over the years only to later return
Moqtada al-Sadr is the scion of an influential clerical family who raised a rebellion after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and has reinvented himself as a reform champion.
Sadr gained widespread popularity in the months after the 2003 invasion. His rise, aided by the reputations of two famed relatives – including his father, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr – killed during Saddam Hussein’s rule, translated into political power.
He has repeatedly bowed out of politics over the years only to later return, most recently by calling for protests and sit-ins aimed at pressuring the government to carry out reforms. His intervention revitalised a moribund pro-reform protest movement, and positioned him to wield a level of direct political influence.
“Sadr has appeal within the Iraqi Shiite grassroots and he is using that dynamic as leverage to reinvigorate his base and the Sadrists’ political fortunes,” said Ahmed Ali of the Institute of Regional and International Studies at the American University of Iraq.
Weeks of protests and inaction by lawmakers boiled over on Saturday, with demonstrators, many of them Sadr supporters, breaking into Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone and storming parliament.
While he had previously threatened to have his supporters storm the area before, he did not publicly order them to do so.