NAJAF, Iraq, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- Residents of Najaf, Iraq took to the streets Monday calling on radical cleric Moqtada Sadr and his Mehdi Army militia to leave the holy Shiite city.
Witnesses said protesters chanted anti-Sadr slogans screaming "take you hands off the city, the people of Najaf do not want you."
The protest, the second of its kind in two days, coincided with a meeting in Najaf between Sadr and grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in addition to Najaf's governor Adnan al-Zarfi and Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Iran-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI.
The recurring protests against the presence of the Mehdi Army constituted the biggest challenge to Sadr's claim to speak for a large portion of Iraq's majority Shiite community.
Sadr's militia battled U.S.-backed Iraqi forces for three weeks in Najaf last month, claiming the lives of dozens of Iraqis.
