ETERNAL VIGILANCE

'Every blow America strikes will bring more people to the way of God'

By Jack Fairweather in Basra

Violence will bring thousands of Shias flocking to Moqtada al-Sadr's cause, his second-in-command told the Telegraph.

Sheikh Abdul Settar al-Behadili, Sadr's deputy and the commander of his Mahdi army in Basra, outlined the radical cleric's master plan for ruling Iraq.

"The only solution to the American problem in Iraq is a violent one," he said.

"Every blow the Americans strike will bring more people to the way of God." Interviewed in run-down offices in Basra, al-Behadili offered a grand vision for the future of Iraq.

"Moqtada wants the Sunnis and Kurds to play a role," said the sheikh.

"But what is more important is that we drive the Americans out first." He predicted that Iraq would become a religious-run state, with the Shia clergy imposing Islamic sharia law.

"Sayyed Moqtada does not want people to have their hands cut off for stealing, but he does want Islamic law at the centre of the state."

Other plans included making Najaf the capital of Iraq. "We don't think these things are unrealistic. We have offices in every city in Iraq," said al-Behadili.

"Each day our members go out and preach Moqtada's words to Iraqis."

He said the Mahdi army, Sadr's shadowy, black-shirted militia, would flourish, although he refused to give details of its strength at present.

"A British captain came to ask me how many we were. I said Sayyed Moqtada's army is a moral one, and we are in the hearts of all Iraqis."

But al-Behadili, a corpulent man who punctuated his denunciations with wry chuckles, reserved his most vehement comments not for the American invaders but for foreign grain importers.

"It is inconceivable that Iraq should import grain to feed its people. This was a country of plenty until the American invasion. They are selling this country out to foreign contractors."

He said he had given a 10-day ultimatum to coalition forces to stop importing grain.

"Hopefully the British are going to last for less time than that," he said.