Iraqi cleric Sadr orders followers to end protests

BAGHDAD: Powerful cleric Moqtada alSadr has ordered his followers to end their protests in central Baghdad, easing a confrontation which led to the deadliest violence in the Iraqi capital in years.

Apologising to Iraqis after 22 people were killed in clashes between an armed group loyal to him and rival Shi’ite Muslim factions backed by Iran, Sadr condemned the fighting and gave his own followers one hour to disperse.

‘‘This is not a revolution because it has lost its peaceful character,’’ Sadr, a former antiUnited States insurgent leader, said in a televised address.

‘‘The spilling of Iraqi blood is forbidden.’’

As the deadline passed at about 2pm local time, Sadr’s followers could be seen leaving the area in the fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad where government offices are located and where they had occupied parliament for weeks.

This week’s clashes between rival factions of Iraq’s Shi’ite majority follow 10 months of political deadlock since Iraq’s October parliamentary election.

The clashes pitted loyalists of Sadr, who has positioned himself as a nationalist opposed to all foreign and especially Iranian influence, against political and armed groups backed by Iran.

Sadr emerged as the main winner in the election but failed to form a government with Sunni Muslim Arab and Kurdish parties, excluding the Iranbacked Shi’ite groups.

Violence erupted after Sadr said he was withdrawing from all political activity — a decision he said was prompted by the failure of other Shi’ite leaders and parties to reform a corrupt and decaying governing system.

An Iraqi government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said authorities could not impose control on the rival armed groups.

‘‘The government is powerless to stop this, because the military is divided into (Iran) loyalists and Sadrists as well,’’ the official said.

President Barham Salih welcomed the initial cessation of violence after Sadr’s address, but warned the political crisis was not over and called for early elections — a demand of Sadr — as a potential way out of the deadlock.

Crucially, Sadr’s Shi’ite, Iranaligned opponents welcomed his call for calm, including Hadi alAmiri, the leader of the main rival political alliance to the populist cleric. ‘‘Sadr’s initiative is brave and deserves praise,’’ Amiri said in a statement.

Sadr’s actions follow a pattern of confrontation and deescalation he has repeatedly deployed in order to gain political power since he rose to prominence after the USled invasion which toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, Hamdi Malik, a specialist on Iraqi Shi’ite militias at the Washington Institute, said.

Malik said Sadr had recently tried to avoid violence to bolster his credentials as a leader of the country’s oppressed masses, but in practice had to threaten violent disorder to get what he wanted.