http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/YAT852606.htmNAJAF, Iraq, April 8 (Reuters) - Thousands of Iraqis streamed to the holy southern city of Najaf on Sunday in response to a call by fiery Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr for a big anti-American protest on Monday.
Sadr, who blames the U.S.-led invasion for Iraq's unrelenting violence, has urged Iraqis to protest on a day that marks the fourth anniversary of when American forces swept into central Baghdad.
"In order to end the occupation, you will go out and demonstrate", Sadr, who accuses U.S. forces of deliberately fomenting civil strife in Iraq, said in a statement.
A car bomb killed 17 people and wounded two dozen in the town of Mahmudiya south of Baghdad, officials said, in the latest attack outside Baghdad since a new U.S.-backed security plan took effect in the capital.