Iraq's Shiite cleric Muqtada al- Sadr is on a short visit to neighboring Iran, a government advisor said on Thursday.

"My information was that he is on a short visit to Tehran and will be back soon," said Sami al-Askari, political advisor to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Al-Askari's comments came in response to a statement by the U.S. military. On Wednesday, a U.S. military spokesman said that the anti-U.S. cleric had fled to Iran before the start of a U.S.-Iraqi crackdown plan.

"We will acknowledge that he is not in the country and all indications are in fact that he is in Iran and he left last month, " Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S. military spokesman, told reporters on Wednesday.

Some U.S. officials suggested that Sadr had left Iraq to escape a crackdown in Baghdad by U.S. and Iraqi troops.

However, Sadr's supporters dismissed the report that Sadr had left for Iran.

On Wednesday, Nassar al-Rubaie, head of Sadr's Shiite parliamentary bloc, told reporters that the cleric was "still inside Iraq and working normally without fear of U.S. forces."

Source: Xinhua