Tabnak, a website close to Mohsen Rezaii, former commander of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and current Secretary of the powerful Exigency Council in mullahs’ regime lashed out at Muqtada al-Sadr on Sunday for what it called “presumptuous statements” directed at the mullahs’ supreme leader Ali Khamenei. The website held al-Sadr’s militias responsible for what it called more than 2,500 casualties in the recent Basra clashes.

In a taped interview with the Aljazeera satellite network broadcasted when al-Sadr was asked about “accusations of being influenced by Shiite neighbor Iran,” he said “I told the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that I do not approve of the ’political and military interests’ that Tehran’s government has pursued in Iraq.”