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Iraqi Shiite Cleric Pledges to Defend Iran
Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr, left, speaks with reporters in Tehran after meeting with Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council.
(Associated Press)
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"That doesn't mean that he meant the Mahdi Army," Yasiri said. "He meant Iraq as a country will help, and not necessarily militarily."
Yasiri said his account came from Sadr officials accompanying the Iraqi cleric in Tehran.
However, a Sadr spokesman in Najaf, the Shiite holy city in southern Iraq that is Sadr's base, gave a different account of the agreement between Sadr and Iran, as did Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency.
"Moqtada Sadr said, 'If any Islamic state, especially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is attacked, the Mahdi Army would fight inside and outside Iraq,' " said the spokesman, Sahib Amiri.
"Iran is an Islamic country that has strong relations with the Shiites in Iraq. We do not forget these relations," Amiri said.
Amiri said Sadr was visiting Iran "to support the Iranian people and government against any possible attack against the Islamic republic."
In Tehran, the state news agency also reported that Sadr had committed his Iraqi militia to fight on Iran's behalf.
"If neighboring Islamic countries, including Iran, become the target of attacks, we will support them," IRNA quoted Sadr as saying. "The Mahdi Army is beyond the Iraqi army," Sadr said, according to IRNA. "It was established to defend Islam."
Iran revived its atomic research program earlier this month, ending a two-year moratorium. While Iran says it intends to develop nuclear energy solely for electricity, Western countries fear the Shiite theocracy is in pursuit of its own atomic bomb.
Israel, a reported atomic power, which destroyed an Iraqi nuclear facility in an airstrike in 1981, has issued what some have seen as threats of similar preemptive strikes in Iran.
French President Jacques Chirac said Thursday that France was prepared to launch a nuclear strike against any country that sponsors a terrorist attack against French interests. He said his country's nuclear arsenal had been reconfigured to include the ability to make a tactical strike in retaliation for terrorism.
Iran has responded unflinchingly, with its Foreign Ministry saying Sunday that Israel would be making a "fatal mistake" if it resorted to military action.
