Iraqi war of words: Did Shiite cleric cut and run?

BAGHDAD, Iraq — An Iraqi lawmaker with close ties to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said Wednesday that he saw the Shiite Muslim leader four days ago in Iraq, continuing a war of words with U.S. officials about al-Sadr's whereabouts.

U.S. officials told reporters this week that the anti-U.S. cleric had left Iraq weeks ago, possibly to avoid a security crackdown in Baghdad. His al-Mahdi Army militia has clashed at times with U.S.-led forces.

But lawmaker Fattah Sheik said in an interview that he met with the cleric in the holy city of Najaf, where al-Sadr lives.

"The media are trying to say he escaped to Iran," said Sheik, a Shiite and al-Sadr loyalist. "It is totally false. I was talking with the office manager and he told me that his eminence was laughing about the news."

Iraqi officials often spend time in neighboring Jordan, Syria and Iran, as well as in Western countries, to escape the deep misery and violence gripping their country. But the suggestion that al-Sadr might have fled ahead of the crackdown could undermine his leadership among the young Shiite men who support him.

The reports of his departure were hotly denied by al-Sadr's supporters, including the head of his parliamentary faction in the capital and his deputies in the shrine city of Najaf.

"The Americans want to shake the foundations that are connected with his eminence," said Abdul-Razzaq Nedawi, an al-Sadr loyalist in Najaf. U.S. Army Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, spokesman for coalition forces in Iraq, on Wednesday repeated U.S. assertions that al-Sadr had left his home in Najaf for Iran in recent weeks.

"We obviously track Muqtada al-Sadr very closely," he said.

Al-Sadr's supporters admitted he has not appeared publicly in weeks, but say he wanted to keep a low profile during the holy period marking the martyrdom of the Imam Hussein, a Shiite saint whose commemoration ended two weeks ago.

U.S. and Iraqi officials believe al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army has evolved into a collection of armed gangs terrorizing Iraqis. A videotape emerged Wednesday showing U.S. Army Reserve Spc. Ahmed Qusai Taei, who reportedly was captured in October, pleading for his release from a group claiming ties to the cleric's militia.

Meanwhile, U.S. warplanes scoured the skies above the capital Wednesday as a Baghdad security plan called Operation Law and Order began.

Violence continued around the country. Four U.S. soldiers died of injuries suffered when explosions went off near their vehicle in Diyala province, the military reported Wednesday. Another U.S. soldier died in Baghdad on Wednesday of wounds suffered from small-arms fire the day before, and a sixth soldier was killed Tuesday in a noncombat incident in northern Iraq, the military said.