Sunday, April 8, 2007

What's Wrong With This News Headline?
Iraqis Flock To City For Anti-U.S. Protest

The following is an except from a recent Reuters news service article.

Sun Apr 8, 4:04 PM ET

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - Thousands of Iraqis streamed to the holy southern city of Najaf on Sunday in response to a call by fiery Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr for a big anti-American protest on Monday.

Sadr, who blames the U.S.-led invasion for Iraq's unrelenting violence, has urged Iraqis to protest on the fourth anniversary of the day American forces swept into central Baghdad.

"In order to end the occupation, you will go out and demonstrate," Sadr, who accuses U.S. forces of deliberately fomenting civil strife in Iraq.

Sadr, who has been keeping a low profile, called on his Mehdi Army militia and Iraqi security forces to stop fighting in the volatile city of Diwaniya and stop playing into the hands of U.S. forces who he said had stirred up civil strife.

What largely began as a Sunni Arab insurgency against U.S. and Iraqi forces following the 2003 invasion of Iraq has since been transformed into a bloody sectarian conflict between Shi'ites and once-dominant Sunni Arabs. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in the past year alone. More than 3,270 American soldiers have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion.

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