(CNN) -- Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the anti-American political figure who returned to Iraq this week from self-imposed exile, told tens of thousands of his followers Saturday to "resist" and "disturb" the United States.
"We have not forgotten the occupier. We remain a resistance," said al-Sadr, delivering a fiery speech in the holy Shiite city of Najaf, his first public address in Iraq in years. "We continue to resist the occupier militarily, culturally and by all means of the resistance".
Al-Sadr, who spent more than three years in self-imposed exile in the predominantly Shiite Iran, took to the podium amid tight security.
As he exhorted Iraqis to unite and end the infighting that has plagued the ethnically and religiously mixed country, the crowd chanted "No, no to America" and "No, no to the occupier," waved Iraqi flags, and carried the portraits of al-Sadr and other Shiite figures.
"Whatever struggle happened between brothers, let us forget about it and turn the page forever and live united," al-Sadr said. "We do not kill an Iraqi".
He noted that politics in recent days has dominated Iraq, which recently formed a government after months of political feuding that followed the March 7 elections. Amid this activity, he said, "it made us forget the resistance and the occupier leaving".
But he reminded the crowd that "our main goal as Iraqi people is to drive the occupation out in any way," but he said resistance doesn't "mean everyone carry arms".
"We also resist through cultural resistance. Our rejection of the occupier at heart is resistance".
The less than 50,000 U.S. troops remaining in Iraq are slated to leave the country at the end of the year under a bilateral security agreement, and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is emphasizing that there will be no extension of U.S. forces after December 31. CNN
