Sadr arrives in Karbala, performs pilgrimage rituals

KARBALA / IraqiNews.com: Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr arrived in the holy city of Karbala on an unannounced visit on Sunday to perform the rituals of pilgrimage to sacred shrines, according to an official at the Imam al-Hussein Mosque. “Sayyed Muqtada al-Sadr visited the al-Hussein and al-Abbas Mosques in Karbala today (Jan. 9) amidst tight security measures,” Jamal al-Shahrestani told IraqiNews.com news agency. “Sadr also met with the al-Hussein Mosque Secretary General and representative of the top Shiite clerics in Karbala Sheikh Abdulmahdi al-Karbalaie,” he said. The visit is Sadr’s first after three years of absence, he said, not giving further information about the nature of the visit. Sadr, whose Sadrist Movement’s al-Ahrar (Liberals) parliamentary bloc obtained 40 seats in the current Iraqi parliament, is expected to meet with top figures in his Movement in Karbala. The al-Shaheed al-Sadr’s office had said the Shiite leader arrived at his house in the province of Najaf on January 5, 2011 back from Iran, where he stayed for three and half years. He was last seen in Iraq during a Friday sermon in early June 2007. Karbala lies 108 km south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. AmR (S) 133