Radical Shia cleric meets Jordan's king but remains a wild card

IRAQ / JORDAN: The radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who mounted two uprisings against the US occupation of Iraq, has met Jordan's King Abdullah, one of Washington's closest Arab allies.

While the king spoke yesterday of maintaining contacts with "all segments" of Iraqi society - Shia, Sunni and Kurd - Mr al-Sadr praised Jordan, host to half a million Iraqi refugees, for its assistance to Iraq.

On Saturday, however, Mr al-Sadr demonstrated that he remains a wild card. He said US and other foreign forces must leave Iraq and declared that he rejects the constitution adopted last October. He dismissed the federal structure of the state laid down in the document - aligning himself with Sunni Arabs, Christians and secularists - and castigated sectarianism.

"There is nothing good in this constitution at all," he said.

If he acts on his declaration, the new Iraqi parliament could face a constitutional crisis even before a government is formed.

His remarks could signal that al-Sadrist legislators will join the call for renegotiation of the constitution. This is opposed by the Shia Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) and the Kurds, federalists who seek to create autonomous regions in the oil-rich north and south.

Mr al-Sadr prepared the ground to do battle by engineering the nomination of the Iraqi prime minister, Ibrahim Jaafari, as head of the next government.

Mr al-Sadr (33), who expects to receive five cabinet posts, is likely to secure the backing of Dr al-Jaafari on amendment of the constitution.

His Dawa party is not committed to regionalism and he has frustrated Kurdish designs on the northern oil city of Kirkuk.

Mr al-Sadr's star has risen rapidly over the past few months, transforming him from little-known cleric to king-maker. In the past few weeks he has been received in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Kuwait as well as Jordan, and he expects to go to Lebanon and Egypt.

Son of Shia Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, who was killed by the Baathist regime in 1999, and a cousin of legendary scholar Muhammad Baqr al-Sadr, assassinated in 1980, the young Moqtada al-Sadrwas only a seminarian when the US occupied Iraq three years ago.

In April 2003, he became a wanted man when his followers killed a rival cleric. A year later armed fighters belonging to his Mahdi army fought US troops in the holy city of Najaf and Baghdad.

Mr al-Sadr went underground. His followers won a handful of seats in the transitional assembly but boosted their representation to 30 in the new parliament. If he co-operates with the Sunni-secular front, with 80 seats they would have enough votes to block the election of a president - the first step in forming a government - until agreement is reached on changes to the constitution.