Iraqi Police *planned* to kill al-Sadr while resisting arrest?! (He's alive, AFAIK.)

[RTFirefly]

No, Moqtada al-Sadr hasn’t been killed, or arrested, or anything, AFAIK. But:

Apparently they had flyers prepared in advance of a planned arrest attempt saying:

Moktada was followed by the Iraqi police for his ties to the slaying of Khoei, and due to violent actions he was killed during an attempt to arrest him.

and

The Justice Ministry tried to arrest Mr. Sadr, but he and his followers resisted fiercely, which drove the Iraqi police to defend themselves.

The NYT (link above) said:

The fliers appeared to have been made by Iraq’s Justice Ministry or its allies to be handed out in case Iraqi policemen killed Mr. Sadr. Somehow, they were distributed prematurely. There were no reports of Mr. Sadr’s death.

Funny thing to prepare ahead of time, “just in case.”

This whole thing’s getting mindbogglingly surreal.

[Liberal]

I agree. The whole thing is like a 1950s spooky movie.

[Desmostylus]

@RTFirefly

Iraqi Police planned to kill al-Sadr while resisting arrest?! (He’s alive, AFAIK.)

I doubt that it was the police themselves that planned any killing. Both the local police and their supposed replacements all ran away at the first signs of trouble.

Latest news from around the world | The Guardian

About 150 policemen sent from Baghdad to replace local policemen who deserted returned to Baghdad - ostensibly because of lack of accommodation for them.

[Marley23]

That’s damn weird. Not something I can’t envision happening, but to whip up a press release ahead of time? What would be really interesting is if the ‘prophecy’ comes true. Will anybody believe things went down that way?