- Hezbollah strikes Israel, says it foiled Israeli incursions
- Jurgen Klopp to return as head of Red Bull football operations
- Sinner to face Medvedev in Shanghai Masters quarter-finals
- US weighs Google breakup in landmark trial
- Record-breaking Root guides England to 232-2 in reply to Pakistan's 556
- Japan PM dissolves parliament for 'honeymoon' snap election
- Chinese stocks tumble on stimulus upset, Asia tracks Wall St higher
- 7-Eleven owner confirms new takeover offer from Couche-Tard
- Goodbye Tito? Tomb at risk as Serbs argue over Yugoslav legacy
- Restoration experts piece together silent Sherlock Holmes mystery
- Sinner avoids Shanghai deja vu with assured Shelton win
- Pyongyang to 'permanently' shut border with South Korea
- Trumpet star Marsalis says jazz creates 'balance' in divided world
- No children left on Greece's famed but emptying island
- Nepali becomes youngest to climb world's 8,000m peaks
- Climate change made deadly Hurricane Helene more intense: study
- A US climate scientist sees hurricane Helene's devastation firsthand
- Padres edge Dodgers, Mets on the brink
- Can carbon credits help close coal plants?
- With EU funding, Tunisian farmer revives parched village
- Sega ninja game 'Shinobi' gets movie treatment
- Boeing suspends negotiations with striking workers
- 7-Eleven owner's shares spike on report of new buyout offer
- Your 'local everything': what 7-Eleven buyout battle means for Japan
- Three million UK children living below poverty line: study
- China's Jia brings film spanning love, change over decades to Busan
- Paying out disaster relief before climate catastrophe strikes
- Chinese shares drop on stimulus upset, Asia tracks Wall St higher
- SE Asian summit seeks progress on Myanmar civil war
- How climate funds helped Peru's women beekeepers stay afloat
- Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded as wars rage
- Pacific island nations swamped by global drug trade
- AI-aided research, new materials eyed for Nobel Chemistry Prize
- Mozambique elects new president in tense vote
- The US economy is solid: Why are voters gloomy?
- Balkan summit to rally support for struggling Ukraine
- New stadium gives Real Madrid a headache
- Alonso, Manaea shine as 'Miracle Mets' blitz Phillies
- Harris, Trump trade blows in US election media blitz
- Harry's Bar in Paris drinks to US straw-poll centenary
- Osama bin Laden's son Omar banned from returning to France
- Afghan man arrested for plotting US election day attack
- Brazil lifts ban on Musk's X, ending standoff over disinformation
- Harris holds slight edge nationally over Trump: poll
- Chelsea edge Real Madrid in Women's Champions League, Lyon win
- Japan PM to dissolve parliament for 'honeymoon' snap election
- 'Diego Lives': Immersive Maradona exhibit hits Barcelona
- Brazil Supreme Court lifts ban on Musk's X
- Scientists sound AI alarm after winning physics Nobel
- Six-year-old girl among missing after Brazil landslide
Sadr supporters mass in Iraq prayer rally amid political deadlock
Hundreds of thousands of Muslim worshippers loyal to Iraqi Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr attended a Friday prayer service in Baghdad, in a display of political might to revive stalled talks on government formation.
The huge turnout came despite scorching heat and the Shiite cleric not being there in person -- an indication of his status as a political heavyweight, as well as a key religious authority.
"Thanks to God for this great victory... Thank you to Friday's faithful," Sadr said on Twitter.
The midday prayer, on Al-Falah Avenue in Sadr City, was led by a Sadr ally, while the mercurial cleric's sermon took aim at rivals from other Shiite factions, including a powerful ex-paramilitary network.
"We are at a difficult... crossroads in the formation of the government, entrusted to some we do not trust," said Sheikh Mahmud al-Jayashi, reading Sadr's speech.
Some factions have shown they are "not up to the task", he added.
Sadr's bloc won 73 seats in the October 2021 election, making it the largest faction in the 329-seat parliament.
But since the vote, talks to form a new government have stalled and the oil-rich country remains mired in a political and socioeconomic crisis, despite elevated global oil prices.
The various Shiite political factions, representing Iraq's largest community, remain unable to agree on a new prime minister.
Sadr initially supported the idea of a "majority government" which would have sent his Shiite adversaries from the pro-Iran Coordination Framework into opposition.
The former militia leader then surprised many by compelling his deputies to resign from parliament in June, a move seen as seeking to pressure his rivals to fast-track government formation.
But a month later the process has not advanced.
- Taking aim at Hashed -
Sadr's sermon took particular aim at the Hashed al-Shaabi, a Shiite former paramilitary force that has been integrated into the army, but is seen by many Iraqis as an Iranian proxy.
The Hashed "must be reorganised and undisciplined elements must be removed", the preacher said, lamenting "foreign interventions" but without naming any country.
He also called for the Hashed -- whose political wing is part of the Coordination Framework -- to be kept at "a distance from politics and business".
Analyst Hamzeh Hadad said the main objective of Friday's rally was to demonstrate that while Sadr's lawmakers had resigned, "it does not mean that he is no longer relevant politically".
"He was flexing his muscles and showing the influence he still has on the street," Hadad said, adding that the points made in his sermon were "nothing new".
Before the prayer began, Sadr loyalists expressed support for the cleric with cries of "Yes, yes to reform! Yes, yes to the reformer!"
Some held prayer mats in hand or waved Iraqi flags.
"We obey Moqtada Sadr, as we obey God and his prophets," Sheikh Kadhim Hafez Mohammed al-Tai told AFP at the rally in Sadr city.
After the 2003 US invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, the district of the capital was named after Mohammad Sadr, Moqtada's father, a cleric who was assassinated in 1999 under Saddam's rule.
G.Stevens--AMWN