al-Sadr: US behind all of Iraq's woes

Al-Manar TV reports that the head of Iraq's Sadr bloc, Sayyed Moqtada al-Sadr, has said the US is responsible for all of Iraq's woes, calling on Arab nations to help end Iraq's suffering.
In comments during an interview on Iraqi state television, Sadr said the US is behind the sectarian violence in Iraq, the schism between Iraqi ethnic groups and the country's economic hardships.
He called for a "cultural resistance'' against Western influences and what he called the West's attack on Islam.
"We are now facing a brutal Western assault against Islam,'' he said.
"This agenda must be countered with a cultural resistance,'' he said, explaining that sectarian divisions in Iraq are part of that Western attack on Islam.
Sayyed al-Sadr acknowledged that both his movement and the Mahdi Army fighters have "shortcomings'' but added that these are exaggerated by the US which, he said, seeks to blemish their image.
"The occupier wants to tarnish the image of this army and this (Sadrist) trend,'' he said, adding "I disown till Judgment Day anyone from the army or the trend who attacks an innocent Iraqi''.
Al-Sadr's delivered a fiery anti-US sermon at the Friday prayers in the holy city of Kufa on May 25, demanding that US occupation troops leave Iraq.
Al-Sadr also warned Arab nations that Iraq's violence will spread to them unless they begin to "cooperate as much as they can to end the suffering of Iraqis''.
"Now Iraq is a battlefield to defend the Arabs and the Muslims. What we are seeing now from the blood-letting will happen in their countries later," Sadr said.
Sayyed al-Sadr, however, said he had no intention to travel to Arab nations to enlist their help.
Al-Sadr said Iraqis must settle their own affairs, rejecting any form of outside interference.