Muqtada al-Sadr
A Shiite cleric who twice led the uprisings against the Americans in Iraq after 2003. His provisional military group is called Mahdi Army. Its members and supporters were recruited primarily from poor Shiite populations of Baghdad and other cities. Sadr for years was not actively engaged in politics.Muqtada al-Sadr is a son of an influential, great ayatollah Mohammad Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr, who was murdered in 1999 for opposing Saddam Hussein.
