Elvis spotted in Najaf

The Washington Post reports:

Moqtada al-Sadr, the influential Shiite cleric and militia leader who went into hiding before the launch of a U.S.-Iraqi security offensive in February, is in the southern city of Kufa, senior U.S. military commanders said Thursday.

Sadr, who has long opposed the U.S. occupation and is ratcheting up pressure for a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, has returned from neighboring Iran, perhaps as recently as this week, they said.

Why now?

Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the No. 2 commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said he believed Sadr had returned to Iraq to shore up his organization.

"I think he's trying to consolidate his power base," Odierno said Thursday evening in his office near the Baghdad airport. "I think there's been a little bit of cracking in the JAM organization," he added, using an acronym for Jaish al-Mahdi, the Arabic name for the Mahdi Army.

But as the Post went on to report:

[Another Army] officer added that although he was fairly confident that Sadr had returned to Kufa, he would not be entirely certain until the cleric makes an appearance. "I wouldn't take it as gospel until you sight Elvis in the building," he said.