Al-Sadr orders Cabinet ministers to quit government

Radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered his Cabinet ministers to withdraw from the Iraqi government immediately, the head of his parliamentary bloc said today.

Al-Sadr’s ministers will “withdraw immediately from the Iraqi government and give the six Cabinet seats to the government, with the hope that they will be given to independents who represent the will of the people,” said Nassar al-Rubaie, head of al-Sadr’s bloc, reading a statement from the cleric.