From Reuters:

Iran's influential former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, on Friday hailed the Shi'ite Muslim militia of firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr as "heroic" for rising up against the U.S. occupation in Iraq.

Rafsanjani told worshippers at Friday prayers in Tehran that a distinction should be drawn between Shi'ite fighters, who have battled U.S.-led troops across southern Iraq this week, and insurrectionist supporters of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party he described as "terrorists..."