Posted on 03/17/2005 6:32:00 PM PST by Straight Vermonter
NAJAF, Iraq -- Iraqi police captured an alleged terrorist reportedly planning to assassinate Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's highest Shiite religious figure.
Najaf Police Chief Brig. Ghaleb Jazairi Thursday said the suspect is a Sunni Kurd from the northern city of Mosul.
Jazairi said Ramzi Hashem confessed his involvement in the assassination of Shiite cleric and former head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Mohammed Baker al-Hakim, in a car bomb in Najaf more than a year ago.
He said Hashem also planned to assassinate Sistani and bomb the mausoleum of Imam Ali, the Shiite's holiest shrine.
Jazairi said the suspect belonged to a Muslim fundamentalist group and received $2,500 for the car bombing that killed Hakim.
Not good. AT least they caught the guy.
If Sistani goes down, there will be a civil war between the Sunnis and the Shia and that won't be a good situation for our troops to be in.
Yeah, and I bet he was carrying something that ID'd him as a Kurd, so that if ID'd after a successful assassination attempt it would be blamed on the Kurds. Zarqawi thought this one through. Wonder how he was caught?
Except that the problem is that the guy was captured *alive*. The ID would only have worked if the guy got killed.
He'll talk.
It may be more significant that he was a Sunni than a Kurd.
Sistani is somewhat restrained and has kept control of a volatile population- the reality is he's a leader we need to keep working with.
If he were killed- all hell would break loose.
Aren't most Iraqi Kurds Sunni?
Remember, the *Iraqis* caught him, not us. He's theirs to play with.
He's not going to be having a good time.
Another one of the al-Hakim assassins.
This was the news a month ago............
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wozarq0208,0,4101449.story?coll=ny-world-big-pix
Yeah, and we would have been blamed for it.
Man that would really suck. I hope they have Sistani covered over there
Zarqawi is trying to split the two: Kurds and Shiites to create sectarian strife so they the Salafies through intimidation and fear sothey (the sunnis salafists/wahhabies) can wedge themselves back into power.
Remember this is the first shiite/arab government in history. Iran although shiite is not arab. We are living in interesting times. Very interesting times indeed.
cheers!
I dunno about the Kurds, but the other Sunnis better pray that Sistani doesn't get assassinated, because they stand to lose big in the fallout.
"an alleged terrorist"
what? Alleged? Perhaps by the same token the MSM should be referring to "alleged insurgent". Oops, that sounds less heroic, silly me.
True.
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