Al-Sadr Warns: US Training Mission will Be Confronted

Local Editor

Iraq's influential cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has issued a warning that any US training mission in Iraq after 2011 will be confronted by "military means".

"We will treat anyone that stays in Iraq as an oppressive occupier that should be resisted through military means," AFP quoted Sadr as saying in a letter released by his office on Saturday.

The cleric's statement came in response to Baghdad's tendency to open talks with US military officials for a post-2011 US training mission in Iraq.

"The government that agrees to their stay, even if it is for training, is a weak government," the letter added.

Earlier on Tuesday, Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari announced that Iraqi politicians have agreed to let Baghdad start negotiations with Washington on a military training mission in Iraq after 2011.

Around 47,000 American soldiers are now stationed in Iraq, all of whom must leave the country by the end of 2011 under the terms of a 2008 bilateral security pact between Washington and Baghdad.

Despite the United States' claim that it no longer engages in combat actions in the country, there have been numerous reports of US troops' involvement in military operations in Iraq.