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Posted on 04/14/2003 10:28:39 AM PDT by knighthawk
BEIRUT: Following the assassination of cleric Abdul-Majid al-Khoei in Iraq Thursday, inter-Shiite rivalry continued as a group of armed Shiites demanded Sunday that top cleric Ali Sistani leave the country by Tuesday, or face attack.
“We are investing intensive efforts and making contacts with Shiite factions around the world to try to defuse this problem, protect Sayyed (Sistani) and let him remain in Najaf,” Mourtada Kashmiri, Sistani’s representative told The Daily Star in a phone interview from London.
Followers of Moqtada al-Sadr, son of late cleric Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr who was assassinated in 1999, surrounded Sistani’s house and ordered him to leave saying that he was an Iranian and had no right to lead the Iraqi Shiite community. Sadr’s group was also accused of murdering Khoei in Najaf last week.
Iraqi Shiite sources in Beirut told The Daily Star that upon instigation of former Baathists, 22-year-old Moqtada al-Sadr is trying to unify Shiites of southern Iraq under his command and lead them to resist American presence in the country.
Like other Shiite clerics such as Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, head of the Tehran-based Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), Sistani maintained a neutral stance on the US invasion of Iraq.
Sistani, 73, was born in Iran and completed his religious studies in the town of Najaf.
He received his degree in ijtihad, religious scholarship, in the 1960s from late cleric Abul-Qassem al-Khoei, the father of assassinated Abdul-Majid. After the death of Abul-Qassem in 1992, Sistani became the top Shiite cleric in Iraq.
On Sunday, his home in Najaf was surrounded by a group of armed Shiites who ordered him to leave Iraq within a 48-hour deadline trying to undermine the legitimacy of his Iraqi leadership by saying that he was an Iranian. “It is a group of chaotic people threatening the Sayyed (Sistani) out of their ignorance,” Kashmiri argued, saying supporters of the former Iraqi regime might be behind the instigation of this group.
Another group, also reportedly from the followers of Sadr, surrounded the house of Mohammed Said al-Hakim, the nephew of SCIRI’s leader, asking him to leave Iraq. “We don’t have relations with Sadr,” said Kashmiri. Sadr is a relative of late Mohammed Baqer al-Sadr, the founder of the Islamic Daawa Party (IDP) which was heavily persecuted during the early years of the Baath rule in Iraq.
“We plead to the sons of the two Sadr martyrs to defuse this at a time when we are in dire need of unifying our rank and file,” said IDP’s spokesman Ibrahim Jaafari Sunday in a statement on the party’s website.
Lebanese leading Shiite cleric Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, who was close to IDP’s founder, was the first cleric to call on Iraqis to resist the presence of American groups in their country.
When asked about Sistani’s stance on the American presence in Iraq, Kashmiri said, “Our position is that of the Muslims around the world.” He added, “Iraq should be ruled by Iraqis and there is no need for Americans to stay.”
Kashmiri confirmed that Sistani did not issue any fatwa urging Shiites to resist US forces.
Meanwhile, the United States called for a meeting of all opposition factions in Nasiriyah Tuesday. The American call prompted mixed reactions from Iraqi Shiite groups. While IDP refused to attend the meeting on the grounds that “an American general called for it,” SCIRI also expressed its “reservations” for the same reason, reported the IDP website.
SCIRI participated in previous opposition conferences in London, and Salahiddin in northern Iraq but IDP boycotted them. The SCIRI decision to skip the Nasiriyah meeting reflected a growing distance between Hakim and American proteges in the Iraqi opposition.
With SCIRI, IDP and al-Sadr boycotting the opposition meeting, followers of late Abdul-Majid al-Khoei are expected to represent the Shiites.
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"Yesterday afternoon, members of the central Euphrates tribes who support the religious leaders of Najaf entered the city and liberated it from Muktada's group," said Sayyed Mohammed Baqer al-Mehri.
He said there was no fighting and that the tribesmen's presence in the city was seen as a show of support for the religious leaders.
Al-Mehri, who heads the Congregation of Muslim Shiah Olama in Kuwait, had said the group feared for the lives of Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ali al-Sistani, Ayatollah Mohammed Saeed al-Hakim and Ayatollah Mohammed Ishaq Fayyed. And he had urged America and Britain to protect them.
He had said "mobs and a number of Baathist agents" who said they were led by Muktada al-Sadr demonstrated outside al-Sistani's Najaf home on Saturday and demanded both he and Fayyad leave Iraq within 48 hours.
Muktada is the son of Ayatollah Mohammed al-Sadr, who was murdered by the Iraqi government in 1999.
"Now, we don't feel the danger (to their lives) we felt yesterday," al-Mehri said, adding that all three top clerics were in an undisclosed "safe place" in Najaf.
Al-Sistani last week issued a fatwa, or religious order, instructing the population to remain calm and not interfere with coalition troops, who at the time were still facing Iraqi forces in Najaf.
A spokesman at US Central Command in Qatar said the incident underscored the volatility in Najaf.
"That's the citizenry and if that's the case, they have to take responsibility for themselves to a greater extent," Lt Cmdr Charles Owens said of the reports. "It just shows that there's a lot of work left to do in re-establishing law and order."
Shiites make up about 60% of Iraq's 24 million people.
Religion and Politics, I hope these folks realize this is their opportunity to progress, Iran and Syria are already trying to screw things up, they don't want us to succeed.
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