Portion below; whole thing here: http://gorillasguides.com/2008/05/31/thousands-of-iraqis-rally-against-us-troop-accord/
BAGHDAD, May 30 (Reuters) - Thousands of people heeded a call from anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to protest talks between Washington and Baghdad on keeping U.S. troops in Iraq beyond 2008, but turnout on Friday was lower than past marches.
Explaining the relatively low numbers, spokesmen for Sadr’s movement said the protests were widely spread through the country but security forces prevented marches in some areas.
In one of the largest demonstrations, several thousand people took to the streets in the Baghdad district of Sadr City, a bastion of Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia. They held up pictures of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki dressed as Saddam Hussein.
In the Kadhimiya district in northwest Baghdad, hundreds of demonstrators with raised fists marched behind a banner asking the United Nations to “stand with the Iraqi people against this security deal between the government and the occupation”.
The United States, which invaded in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein, now has 155,000 troops in Iraq.
It is negotiating with Iraq on an agreement aimed at giving a legal basis to U.S. troops after Dec. 31, when their United Nations’ mandate expires. Sadr’s followers see it as a surrender of Iraq’s sovereignty to an occupying force.
Sadr, backed by a militia estimated to number tens of thousands and popular among Iraq’s Shi’ite poor, has called for protests to continue until the government agrees to hold a referendum on the U.S. presence.
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the biggest Shi’ite group in Maliki’s government, also criticised the planned agreement on a troop extension.
In a statement on his website, he said there was a “national consensus to reject many points raised by the American side as they infringe national sovereignty.”
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