BAGHDAD — The heat was suffocating and the crowds were immense, blocking traffic and slowing emergency vehicles to a crawl.
And yet on Aug. 5, thousands — or hundreds of thousands — of supporters of firebrand Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr continued to make their way to an area of the heavily fortified Green Zone for Friday prayers on parched grass against the backdrop of famous and enormous crossed swords erected to symbolize a previous Iraqi strongman’s power.
