Iraq and Syria: ISIL’s Reduced Operating Areas as of April 2015 (Dept. of Defense)
BAGHDAD (AP) - Thousands have rallied in Baghdad in support of firebrand Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr who has taken the lead role in protests demanding government reforms.
Al-Sadr's associate, Sheik Asad al-Nasiri, delivered a message from the cleric at a rally on Friday in the Iraqi capital, giving Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi 24 hours to implement wide-ranging reforms such as installing technocrats in key political positions.
Otherwise, the message says, the protesters will not limit themselves to sit-ins outside the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, where the government is headquartered and where al-Sadr's followers demonstrated last week.
The weekly rallies in Baghdad are meant to pressure Iraq's political leadership.
Al-Abadi's efforts to implement reform have been thwarted by his own political missteps as well as the country's increasingly sectarian politics.