Struggling with the heat?

After a disappearance lasting several months, the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has magically reappeared in the holy city of Kufah, in Iraq. I've just watched him giving a press conference, half-hidden behind a battery of microphones. You can read the various theories why he has suddenly rematerialised here. Reuters adds that he is trying to reposition himself as a nationalist. In his sermon today he apparently called on his supporters to protect Sunnis and Christians from attack.

What was interesting was the way that Moqtada frequently wiped his face with a handkerchief throughout. His aides claim that he has been in Iraq throughout his absence. But it looked to me as if he was struggling with the heat. My guess, for what it's worth, is that he has just returned from somewhere rather higher and cooler, perhaps in the mountains across the Iranian border.

Maliki under pressure

The BBC reports that the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has condemned a joint British and Iraqi raid on the National Iraqi Intelligence Agency headquarters in Baghdad.

To justify their action in raiding the HQ, the British issued a statement that they had found "around 30 prisoners, including a woman and two children, who were being held, and many of whom showed signs of torture and abuse". This is important because Mr Blair based much of his case for war on Saddam Hussein's record of torture. In his now infamous speech on 24 September 2002, he specifically drew attention to Saddam's "routine butchering of political opponents, the prison 'cleansing' regimes in which thousands die, the torture chambers and the hideous penalties supervised by him and his family." Saddam and his family may no longer be around to supervise, but it appears the torture chambers and the hideous penalties are still be used in earnest. And Mr Maliki seems to be condoning their use.

It looks as if Mr Maliki is feeling the heat of a distinct increase in the pressure on the Shia population, who he has been criticised for favouring in the past. Also yesterday (Sunday) US and Iraqi troops entered Sadr City, a run-down Shia district of north-east Baghdad in their effort to crack down on the militias thought to be based there. Mr Maliki is apparently considering a Cabinet reshuffle in which it is rumoured he will sack the six supporters of the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who criticised the security crackdown in the capital. Sadr made himself scarce shortly before the troop "surge" began.