Reply #5: He is not been home for quite a while

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Would also be willing to bet he also left the area also (He is probably getting info from outside sources) I see most of the armed people running around there as thugs. I am no fan of any of it.


U.S. forces raid house of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr

By TODD PITMAN
Associated Press Writer

NAJAF, Iraq (AP) -- U.S. forces stormed a Najaf house belonging to a radical Shiite cleric, who has led a deadly uprising against coalition and Iraqi troops for more than a week, as American and Iraqi soldiers launched a major assault Thursday on his militiamen. Explosions and gunfire echoed near the revered Imam Ali shrine and its vast cemetery.

Residents saw U.S. forces break into Muqtada al-Sadr's house without meeting any resistance. Al-Sadr, who has vowed to fight "until the last drop of my blood has been spilled," was not there at the time.

It was not immediately known where he went, but residents reported clashes between Iraqi police and members of his Mahdi Army militia near the house Wednesday, which may have prompted most residents to leave the area.

Also, Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi called on Shiite militants to put down their weapons and leave the shrine, where they have sought refuge.

"These places have never been exposed to such violations in the past," he said, adding that many innocent people have been killed.
(snip)
http://billingsgazette.com/index.php?tl=1&display=rednews/2004/08/12/build/world/25-iraq.inc


The Tasteful War And Other Media Lies
by Deck Deckert

April 28, 2003


(snip)
The media is smug and self congratulatory about its coverage of the Gulf War 2, The Sequel, brimming with self confidence that it did a superb job.

It did, of course -- for the smirking pretender to the throne in the White House, for the Pentagon, for the bomb makers feeding at the inexhaustible war trough.

It gave them and us a sanitized war, a pretty war. The corporate media asked no awkward questions, hid the sights and sounds of dissent before and during after the rape of Iraq, resolutely refused to show the reality of war.

The media gave us a bloodless war. It deliberately chose to hide the carnage. There were no pictures of exploded babies, armless children, dismembered adults, rotting bodies of soldiers and civilians alike. It was just a matter of taste, the happy talk warriors in TV studios assured us. They were offering us a tasteful war.

There was no visible dissent to this glorious war, not if you got your information from the mainstream media. The millions who protested in the U.S. and across the world were either ignored, or treated as simpletons who just didn't understand the valid reasons for the war -- Iraq's dissing UN resolutions, its link to terrorism and 911, or those mysteriously missing weapons of mass destruction, or what was it? Oh, yeah, liberation.
(snip)
http://www.swans.com/library/art9/rdeck036.html