Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for an end to Iraqi bloodshed on Friday and said his threat of an ''open war'' applies only to US-led foreign troops - stepping back from a full-blown confrontation with the government over a crackdown against his followers.
''If we have threatened an open war until liberation, we meant a war against the occupier,'' the cleric said in a message read during sermons in Sadr City, the Baghdad stronghold of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, and the southern city of Nasiriyah. (AP)