Cleric Sadr urges Iraqis to oppose US, but peacefully

Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr burnished his anti-US credentials on Saturday by urging supporters to resist all occupiers of Iraq and oppose the United States, but not necessarily with arms.

In his first public speech since his homecoming on Wednesday after years of self-imposed exile in Iran, the one-time firebrand urged his supporters to give Iraq's new government led by Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki a chance.

"We are still fighters," said Sadr, who led two uprisings against the US military after the 2003 US-led invasion and has called for an earlier US withdrawal than the agreed deadline of the end of this year.

At the start of his speech, Sadr, whose Mehdi Army militia fought US troops and was blamed for much of the sectarian slaughter that gripped Iraq, asked his followers to chant "No, no to America" and to denounce Israel and reject all occupiers.

He said arms were for "people of weapons only", a comment that seemed to endorse the authority of the army and the police and could calm fears of a revival of the Mehdi Army.

The cleric seemed eager to shed the image of a rabble-rouser and appear statesmanlike as his movement assumed a new, powerful role in Baghdad's coalition government.

"Open the way before the new government to prove that it is for serving the people," he told thousands gathered in the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf, where some had slept in the street outside his house for days.