{"id":5912,"date":"2008-04-19T19:02:21","date_gmt":"2008-04-20T02:02:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bradblog.com\/?p=5912"},"modified":"2008-04-20T03:15:03","modified_gmt":"2008-04-20T10:15:03","slug":"sadr-issues-24-hour-ultimatum-to-iraqs-maliki-threatens-open-war-until-liberation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=5912","title":{"rendered":"Sadr Issues 24 Hour Ultimatum to Iraq’s Maliki, Threatens ‘Open War Until Liberation’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The “surge is working” surge may not be “working” for much longer, now that al-Sadr is threatening to lift, in the next 24 hours, the 7-month long Mehdi Army cease-fire which made the surge appear to be working in the first place.<\/p>\n

Sure hope Stephanopoulos asks McCain why he doesn’t wear a flag pin on tomorrow’s This Week<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The latest ominous news, breaking over the past few hours out of Iraq, as culled from Cernig’s round-up at Newshogger<\/a> follows [emphasis Cernig’s<\/i>]…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Via AP<\/a> and Fox<\/a>:<\/i><\/p>\n
[Muqtada al-Sadr] says he is giving his final warning to the Iraqi government to stop working with the U.S. military against him or he will “declare an open war until liberation.”<\/p>\n

The threat to lift a more than 7-month-old cease-fire comes amid fighting between al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia and U.S.-Iraqi troops in Baghdad’s Sadr City and the southern city of Basra.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More from AP<\/i><\/a>:<\/p>\n

I direct my last warning and speech to the Iraqi government to refrain and to take the path of peace and abandon violence against its people,” al-Sadr said in the statement. “If the government does not refrain and leash the militias that have penetrated it, we will announce an open war until liberation.”<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reuters<\/i><\/a>:<\/p>\n

A rebellion by Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia — which has tens of thousands of fighters — could also reverse overall security gains at a time when U.S. forces are starting to leave Iraq.<\/p>\n

…In Sadr’s Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City, one Mehdi Army commander said he was “thrilled” about the statement.<\/p>\n

“We will wait until tomorrow to see the response of the government. Otherwise they will see black days like they have never seen before in their life.”<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Cernig concludes, “So, a 24 hour ultimatum,” and adds via email: “I’ve already seen one military analyst on another private grouplist say that if this breaks wrong we could be talking helicopters from rooftops before too long.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The “surge is working” surge may not be “working” for much longer, now that al-Sadr is threatening to lift, in the next 24 hours, the 7-month long Mehdi Army cease-fire which made the surge appear to be working in the first place. Sure hope Stephanopoulos asks McCain why he doesn’t wear a flag pin on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-iraq-war","bb-type-bradblog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5912\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5912"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=5912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}