Iraq cleric on rare public visit

Moqtada Sadr's meeting with President Assad was a rare public appearance

Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr has made a rare public appearance in Syria, where he met President Bashar Assad.

Reports say they discussed the status of American forces in Iraq.

Mr Sadr's militia, the Mehdi Army, fought against the US forces in Iraq until a peace deal was signed in 2007. He has rarely been seen since then.

In Iraq, two people have been killed in bomb attacks in Mr Sadr's stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad and three people died in two car bombings in Ramadi.

It was the third day of bloodshed in a week in Ramadi, the capital of the western province of Anbar, about 100 km (40 miles) from Baghdad. The two car bombs went off outside a restaurant.

Those who died in Baghdad were casual labourers. Thirty people were also wounded.

Three people died when two car bombs exploded in Ramadi

Details of the meeting between Moqtada Sadr and the Syrian president have not been made public.

But reports suggest they discussed the American military presence in Iraq, now that US troops have withdrawn from urban areas.

The BBC's correspondent in Baghdad, Gabriel Gatehouse, says the visit came as political influences, both inside Iraq and beyond its borders, are adapting to a shift in the balance of power.

The United States is steadily reducing its presence in Iraq, our correspondent says, after six years of - in effect - being in charge.

The Sadrist Mehdi Army took part in the sectarian war which nearly tore Iraq apart, and fought a guerrilla campaign against the Americans until a ceasefire was agreed in 2007.

He has been largely invisible since then, rumoured to be living in the Iranian holy city of Qom. But he remains a powerful leader among Iraq's majority Shia Muslims.

His last public appearance was in May, when he attended talks in Turkey on the future of Iraq. Before that, he had not been seen for two years.