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TEL AVIV: Five days ago, an undisclosed intelligence agency intercepted a telephone call made by the head of Iran’s Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, in which he was heard ordering his proxies in Iraq to attack the U.S embassy in Baghdad, as well as other Israeli and American targets, with the aim of taking hostages, Israeli sources say. It’s unclear whether this was a lapse in tradecraft on the part of the usually savvy Soleimani or whether the notorious Iranian military leader’s phone calls were being routinely intercepted. Nor is it clear whether it was the US or another...

Iranian militia leader Hadi al-Amiri, one of several identified as leading an attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday, reportedly visited the White House in 2011 during the presidency of Barack Obama. On Tuesday, a mob in Baghdad attacked the U.S. embassy in retaliation against last weekend’s U.S. airstrikes against the Iran-backed Shiite militia Kataib Hezbollah (KH), responsible for killing an American civilian contractor. KH is one of a number of pro-Iran militias that make up the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF/PMU), which legally became a wing of the Iraqi military after fighting the Sunni Islamic State terrorist group....

The same Tuesday night that a senior official in US President Barack Obama's administration was quoted calling Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu "chickens**t," yet more officials indicated the US is warming up to cooperation with Iran - the Islamic regime seeking nuclear weapons that has repeatedly declared its desire to destroy Israel. Senior US and Arab officials were cited by the Wall Street Journal saying that in recent months, America and Iran have grown closer through cooperation against their "common enemy", the Islamic State (ISIS), as well as over a shared interest in "stability" in Iraq and Afghanistan. American officials revealed...

Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has called upon political leaders not to "cling" to their posts at the cost of political stability as pressure mounts for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to step down. "The gravity of the phase Iraq is undergoing requires the concerned parties to bear their national responsibilities, which require sacrifice and not to cling to posts," the reclusive al-Sistani said in a statement read by his spokesman Abdul-Mahdi al-Karbalaie at Friday prayers in the holy city of Karbala. "This government... should enjoy wide national acceptance so that it will be able to face...

Baghdad, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraq's most senior Shi'ite Muslim cleric urged followers to take up arms against a full-blown Sunni militant insurgency to topple Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, escalating a conflict that threatens civil war and a possible break-up of the country. In a rare intervention at Friday prayers in the holy city of Kerbala, a message from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is the highest religious authority for Shi'ites in Iraq, said people should unite to fight back against a lightning advance by militants from the radical Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Fighters under the black...

Concerns are growing over executions and mounting abuses by militants led by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), amid a warning from the United Nations that hundreds of people were killed, many of them summarily executed, after the seizure of Mosul. “The full extent of civilian casualties is not yet known but reports received by UNAMI, the U.N. mission in Iraq, to this point suggest that the number of people killed in recent days may run into the hundreds and the number of wounded is said to be approaching 1,000,” Rupert Colville, the spokesman of the U.N.’s...

..."According to sources, the health status [of]Sistani worrying and attempts of Iranian medical team who hurry to Najaf after aggravating his health did not lead to a result so far..."

SNIP Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, in a statement released Thursday night, said: "While we denounce the assault on the Holy Koran and stress the importance of not letting this occur, we urge Muslims, whereever they are, to exercise the utmost restraint." "Do not do what would hurt the followers of the church," he said. SNIP

Insulting remarks by a Saudi cleric about the most revered Shia cleric in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, have strained relations between Baghdad and Riyadh. In a Friday sermon in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, a leading Wahhabi cleric, Mohammad al-Ureifi, called Ayatollah al-Sistani an "atheist and debauched." He also launched an attack on Iraqi Shias accusing them of conspiring with Yemen's Houthis against Saudi Arabia with Iran's support. Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki strongly criticized the Saudi religious institutes after the cleric's remarks. He said Saudi religious institutes had a tendency to launch attacks on Shia clerics due...

(CNN) -- The Web site of Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric was hacked on Friday, with the attackers' messages saying they are Sunnis upset over fatwas, or edicts, issued on the site. A entity called Group XP placed a video of comedian Bill Maher making fun of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and his advice to the Shiite faithful, as well as posting messages on the site. The hackers said they are upset at the sexual nature of the advice given to faithful allegedly by al-Sistani through a spokesperson. Those who have studied the attack believe that the Maher video is meant...

.."An official in the governorate of Najaf [said] that Mr. Sistani [has] loss of consciousness and that he is incapable of movement and speech, .."

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's cabinet wants to ban parties from using pictures of figures who are not running for office at campaign rallies for local elections, the government's spokesman said on Thursday. Campaigning in places of worship would also be prohibited, a statement from government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said. Pictures of religious leaders are almost always displayed at Shi'ite political gatherings and during election campaigns. Political sources said that ban was mainly aimed at preventing Shi'ite groups from using posters of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the highest Shi'ite religious leader in Iraq. Analysts said, in past elections, some Shi'ite factions...

I called this AP story fishy from the beginning: Iraq’s most influential Shiite cleric has been quietly issuing religious edicts declaring that armed resistance against U.S.-led foreign troops is permissible — a potentially significant shift by a key supporter of the Washington-backed government in Baghdad…~~~ “(Al-Sistani) rejects the American presence,” he told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment to media. “He believes they (the Americans) will at the end pay a heavy price for the damage they inflicted on Iraq.” For good reason it seems. Gateway Pundit has the scoop: Iraqi-American Haider...

Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric has been quietly issuing religious edicts declaring that armed resistance against U.S.-led foreign troops is permissible — a potentially significant shift by a key supporter of the Washington-backed government in Baghdad. The edicts, or fatwas, by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani suggest he seeks to sharpen his long-held opposition to American troops and counter the populist appeal of his main rivals, firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia.

An aide to Muqtada al-Sadr has lashed out at Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most revered Shia cleric, for keeping silent over clashes that have killed hundreds in Baghdad.   Fifteen people were killed and dozens wounded in fighting in the Sadr City district of the capital on Friday, US and Iraqi officials said. The area is home to some of the poorest Shia in Iraq, and forms the bedrock of support for al-Sadr and his al-Mahdi Army militia.   US forces have killed 25 fighters in two days of clashes in the area. Hospitals in Sadr City said they had received...

Brand News episode of Covert Radio is now available; Brett Winterble interviews Bill Roggio to talk about Iraq, Iran and the growing Shiite unease with Al Sadr's Mahdi Army. Bill also shares his insight on Khatami's recent comments about exporting revolution. Brett and Bill also talk about the recent over the horizon strikes into Somalia.

With the Iraqi government applying pressure to the Sadrist movement and Muqtada al Sadr to disband the Mahdi Army, Iraq’s senior Shia cleric has weighed in on the issue. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most revered Shia cleric in Iraq, backed the government’s position that the Mahdi Army should surrender its weapons and said he never consulted with Sadr on disbanding the Mahdi Army. Instead, the decision to disband the Mahdi Army is Sadr’s to make. Sistani spoke through Jalal el Din al Saghier, a senior leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a rival political party to the...

IRAN'S BUSTED IRAQ BID By AMIR TAHERI April 10, 2008 -- A GAMBLE that proved too costly. That's how analysts in Tehran describe events last month in Basra. Iran's state-run media have de facto confirmed that this was no spontaneous "uprising." Rather, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) tried to seize control of Iraq's second-largest city using local Shiite militias as a Trojan horse. Tehran's decision to make the gamble was based on three assumptions: * Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki wouldn't have the courage to defend Basra at the risk of burning his bridges with the Islamic Republic in...

And so this idiotic saga of “did he or didn’t he,” launched by Sadr’s announcement that he’d disband the JAM if Shiite clerics told him to, reaches its absurd conclusion. Because Sistani won’t talk to the press himself, we’re left to divine his intentions from intermediaries. Surprise: Sadr’s people say he gave them the thumbs up and Sadr’s chief rivals for Shiite supremacy say he gave them the thumbs down. Sort of. The thumbs up version: The influential Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr said his clerical advisers, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, rejected calls to disband the Mahdi Army.Salah al-Obaidi,...

When word came out from Sadr’s people yesterday that the Shiia Council had not told Sadr to disband the Mahdi Army I was highly skeptical and lambasted sick liberals like Juan Cole and the dupes in the SurrenderMedia for almost cheering the idea Sadr will not be completely destroyed politically. I noted that only a Sadr spokesman made these claims and one of two things would happen: We will know soon enough if CNN was duped again or not. If the Sadr spokesperson (possibly in Iran) is right the Iraqi Shiite leaders will remain silent. And if he is trying...