US pressure on cleric pushes militants south

On Saturday, US forces dropped leaflets around Najaf, to declare that they would "continue to work with Iraqis to defeat terrorism" after that date. Previous leaflets warned gunmen that continued fighting "will lead to your death. You choose your destiny."

Though Sadr is a junior cleric, he comes from a long line of popular senior ayatollahs who paid with their lives to take on the secular authority and tyranny of Saddam Hussein.

"The Coalition has to tread a very fine line," says a Western adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in southern Iraq. "Often Iraqis say, 'You must act against these people.' But if you do, they stop you, and ask, 'What are you doing?' "

As the conflict burns on, though, Sadr's own tactics may be harming his standing among Iraqi Shiites, who are tired of the constant political and military skirmishing.

British and Iraqi forces at dawn on Saturday in Amarah cleared buildings that had been used to launch militia attacks, including the local library, labor union, and telecom-ministry office. A raid on the provincial Sadr office yielded four truckloads of ordnance, including surface-to-air missiles. Similarly, on a tip from Iraqi citizens in Diwaniyah, according to the US military, at a girls' school that the Sadr militia had ordered closed two weeks earlier, US and Iraqi forces found 35 mortar rounds, rocket-propelled grenades, and other ordnance.

"Every cache reveals that Sadr hides under the cloak of religion, and has an aggressive military intent," says the CPA adviser. "It is undermining his credibility among Iraqis."

Sadr's brand of open confrontation has won him little popular support in Najaf and Karbala, long bastions of the quieter branch of Shiite Islam in Iraq that follows the example of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's preeminent theologian in Najaf. Business has dropped dramatically in both cities because of the unrest, and many blame Sadr.

Even Sadr's Iranian mentor, the hardline Ayatollah Kazem al-Haeri, has made clear his displeasure with Sadr, stating through a spokesman that Sadr is not authorized to make political decisions or wage jihad against coalition forces in the ayatollah's name - the second time in a year that Mr. Haeri has disassociated himself from the junior cleric.

"The ancient Shia way is you never go into an all-out attack; you maneuver to defeat your enemy, without fighting," says Baram. "Sadr is very exceptional in this way. He reminds me of Saddam Hussein - when you count the similarities, your mouth hangs open."

Baram says that Sadr has his own courts, police, detention centers, and torture chambers.

Sadr needs media attention "all the time, like oxygen," says Baram. Another reminder of Mr. Hussein is the identical affectation that some Sadr supporters now add when they mention his name: "May God protect and preserve him."

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