Peace Companies

Armed supporters of a powerful Iraqi cleric who clashed with security forces in the capital began to withdraw from the streets Tuesday, restoring a measure of calm after a serious escalation of the nation's political crisis.

Fighting between rival Iraqi forces raged for a second day on Aug. 30 with rocket fire echoing from Baghdad's Green Zone where 23 supporters of powerful Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr have been shot dead, medics said.

Representatives of Iraqi Shia groups have decided to unite to expel U.S. forces from Iraq, a spokesman for one of them said on Jan. 14.

The decision to "unite and coordinate forces" was taken to fully liberate Iraq from U.S. forces, Nasr al-Shammari, from the Al Nujaba Movement, told Iraq's official news agency INA.

Turkey's president late on May 25 congratulated Muqtada al-Sadr on the phone over his coalition's victory in Iraq's general elections.

Iraq's Muqtada al-Sadr, the maverick Shiite cleric whose political coalition beat out Iran's favored candidates to come in first in national elections, says he wants to form a government that puts Iraqis first.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's list appears to be leading in Iraq's parliamentary election, followed by influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's alliance, an election commission source and a security official told Reuters on May 13.

An Iraqi police officer was killed and seven others wounded in clashes on Feb. 11 with protesters loyal to prominent Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in central Baghdad, an interior ministry spokesman said. 

Influential Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr met with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on March 27 night after beginning a sit-in in Baghdad's highly fortified Green Zone intended to be a show of force following his calls to combat government corruption.