Moktada al-Sadr, 2004 News

radical Shiite cleric, ordered a bloody uprising against U.S. troops based in southern Iraq in early April, after authorities shuttered his newspaper, Al Hawza, alleging it incited violence. The insurgency lasted seven weeks and claimed hundreds of fighters in al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. Another violent uprising followed in August. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani negotiated a truce between al-Sadr and the U.S.