Sadr vows on post-2011 US stay in Iraq

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.