BAGHDAD — Anti-American Iraqi cleric Muq tada al-Sadr took a rare public step into the political arena Monday, meeting in neighboring Syria with the man directly challenging Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for his office.
Al-Sadr, a Shiite who is nominally allied with al-Maliki, met with former premier Ayad Allawi, who heads the heavily Sunni-backed Iraqiya coalition. Al-Sadr rarely travels outside his home base in Iran, where he lives in self-imposed exile. His followers won 12 percent of the seats in parliament in Iraq’s inconclusive national elections in March, giving him considerable sway over who becomes the next prime minister.
