BAGHDAD, April 3, (Reuters) - Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called on Thursday for a million-strong demonstration against U.S. "occupation", a potentially destabilising show of force after his followers battled U.S. and government troops.
The demonstration would take place next Wednesday April 9, the fifth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad, when the U.S. commander in Iraq is also scheduled to brief Congress in Washington about progress in the war.
U.S. forces called in helicopter strikes during a clash with gunmen on Thursday in the city of Hilla and bombed a house in Basra overnight, stepping up raids after days of relative calm that followed a truce announced by Sadr on Sunday.
"The time has come to express your rejections and raise your voices loud against the unjust occupier and enemy of nations and humanity, and against the horrible massacres committed by the occupier against our honourable people," said a statement released by Sadr's office in the holy city of Najaf.
The statement called on Iraqis of all sects to descend on Najaf, site of annual Shi'ite pilgrimages that frequently attract hundreds of thousands of worshippers.
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