CAMP PENDLETON —— For many local Marines recently returned from south-central Iraq, the enemy had one face and name: that of rebel Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

At least seven Camp Pendleton Marines were killed and scores more were wounded in August when the Marines battled al-Sadr's militia in the city of Najaf and sent al-Sadr into hiding, paving the way for about six months of peace there.

Now, after the Marines have gone and National Guard troops have taken their place, al-Sadr is back, railing against the American military occupation. In recent days he has made fiery speeches that have incited anti-American protests in the streets of several southern Iraqi cities and brought about armed clashes with police in at least one city.

On Monday and Tuesday, some local Marines seemed little concerned that al-Sadr was stirring up trouble again and that the Marine legacy in Najaf was threatened.

"It does not surprise me he came out of hiding," said Lt. Col. Gary Johnston, the operations officer for Pendleton's 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which led the fight against al-Sadr in the heart of Najaf last summer.

"It's not a big deal," he said, adding that recent news reports of protests indicated only a few thousand protesters in Najaf and other cities.

The Associated Press reported that about 6,000 al-Sadr followers marched in Najaf, as well as in nearby Kufa, in the eastern city of Kut, and in Nasiriyah, to the south. Many chanted and raised copies of the Quran and trampled on images of American and Israeli flags drawn on the ground in front of mosques May 19, according to the report.

The demonstrations erupted into gunbattles in Nasiriyah, according to the report. Johnston said sources in Iraq told him of similar clashes with police in Kufa, where some local Marines had predicted al-Sadr would attempt a comeback.

"The guy used to be able to muster 100,000 in a heartbeat," Johnston said. "He's still got a huge following that just can't be ignored."

Johnston said senior Marine leaders who control the joint task force responsible for south-central Iraq have contacted him and other Pendleton-based officers for advice on how to handle al-Sadr.

He said he has warned them not to allow al-Sadr special military "exclusion zones" around his residences and offices, which al-Sadr used to grow his militia in before the Marines arrived in Najaf last summer.

"We put a big hurt on his militia, and it's taken a long time for him to recover and come back out," Johnston said, adding that it is al-Sadr, not his fighters, who appears to have made a comeback. "But you can't let him get too big, too strong."

Johnston said the bright side of al-Sadr's return could be that the cleric seems to want to play a political role rather than challenge the Americans to a fight.

While he said al-Sadr was "very hard to read" and had a long history of reneging on promises to renounce violence, Johnston said he believed the new Iraqi government and U.S. forces in the region were giving al-Sadr some political "wiggle room."

"Some of it, to me, is healthy," Johnston said. "He's got to have a chair at the table, whether we like it or not. … If you can focus him (on politics), you can get some miles out of the guy and get him in the process.

"Either way, it's got to be an Iraqi solution to all this," he added.

Capt. Sean Roach, who led a Marine infantry company against al-Sadr's militia in Najaf in August, said he was not too concerned about al-Sadr's sudden public comeback or his future role.

Roach's Alpha Company "Raiders" of Pendleton's 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment battled al-Sadr's so-called Mahdi army through Najaf's massive cemetery and Old City quarter, where two "Raiders" were killed and 30 were wounded. He has said the Marines killed hundreds of al-Sadr's men.

Roach said that while he had discussed al-Sadr's resurrection in Najaf with other Marines in the unit, it did not seem to stir many emotions among his men.

"I think most of the guys, at this point, are looking forward now," he said, adding that most of Alpha Company's Marines were unavailable because they were training Tuesday.

"We don't really get into the politics of it all," he said. "We just know how much we put into it over there, and we hope that in the end it all works out all right for the people of Najaf."

Juan Cole, a longtime al-Sadr observer and professor of history at the University of Michigan, said al-Sadr's re-emergence need not alarm U.S. forces in Iraq.

He said al-Sadr seems to want to carve out political niche as a mediator between hard-line Sunni and Shiite factions in Iraq as sectarian violence escalates in Iraq.

"Moqtada has been confronted by the events of last spring and August and knows that he's not going to make any headway militarily," he said. "If he is going to have a political future, he has to adopt another schtick."

Contact staff writer Darrin Mortenson at (760) 740-5442 or dmortenson@nctimes.com.