The Most Powerful Iraqi: Who is Muqtada al-Sadr?

Whatever else the US intended when it invaded Iraq in 2003 it was not to hand power to an Islamic militant in a black turban who denounces Washington and Israel in the same breath. The claim by two American officials yesterday that Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shia nationalist cleric, has left for Iran is a measure of how far the US would like to see him out of the Iraqi political scene.

Allegations by US officials in Baghdad have little credibility after almost four years in which they have been repeatedly exposed as untrue. Supporters of Muqtada immediately denied that he was in Iran and either refused to say where he was or asserted that he was in the Shia holy city of Najaf. He has every reason to keep his location a secret, since in the past the US military has said it will either kill or capture him if it can. Two of his most important aides have been killed in mysterious circumstances in the past week.

We may be close to a final confrontation between the US and Muqtada, perhaps the most important political figure in Iraq. The US and Iraqi governments are starting their much-heralded campaign to regain control of Baghdad from the Sunni insurgents and Shia militias, of which the most important is Muqtada's 70,000-strong Mehdi Army. Iraq's borders with Iran have been closed for 72 hours.

Muqtada himself has no doubt that he is under threat. In an interview in January he said: "I have moved my family to a safe place. I have even made a will and I continually move around so they have trouble knowing exactly where I am." He has been trying to avoid becoming a US target. He plays down his own strength. Asked about claims that the army and police are infiltrated by his men, Muqtada said the reverse was true and "it is our militias [that] are swarming with spies. It doesn't take much to infiltrate the army of the people." He denies that the death squads killing Sunni are really members of the Mehdi Army.

Probably, Muqtada and the men around him believe that if he can avoid a direct clash with the US army then he will win in the end. His popularity among the Shia is great. In the past few weeks his men have stopped carrying their weapons so openly in the streets and have closed a number of their offices in Baghdad. But the militiamen are seldom far away. In Sadr City they have only retreated deeper into the vast shanty town of two million people that is the greatest bastion of Sadrist support.

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The rise of Muqtada has been one of the surprises of the four years since the US invaded. Saddam Hussein must have been astonished as he went to his execution to hear the name: "Muqtada! Muqtada! Muqatada!" shouted by jeering onlookers. Had Saddam realised the potential of this strange, enigmatic young man before the invasion then he would doubtless have killed him, as he did Muqtada's father and two of his brothers eight years ago.

It is difficult to avoid Muqtada's presence in Baghdad. Dressed in his dark clerical robes, he peers menacingly from posters on thousands of walls. His Mehdi Army militiamen control not only Sadr City but much of the capital and southern Iraq. He is an essential prop to the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, in which six ministers belong to his movement.

Yet the source of his power has remained a mystery to the US and many Iraqi politicians. Few men have been so consistently underestimated. He is not a great orator, nor does he have huge charisma. His movement has limited resources. Until recently, his militiamen were unpaid and provided their own weapons. He does not have a powerful foreign backer. In spite of US efforts to link him to Iran and claim that he has fled there, he and his movement have traditionally been suspicious of the Iranians, and they of him.