Posted on 05/02/2003 12:42:09 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
Iraq police arrest two over cleric death in Najaf
NAJAF, Iraq, May 2 (Reuters) - Iraqi police exchanged fire with gunmen near a holy shrine and cemetery in Najaf early on Friday, detaining two of them suspected of participating in the killing of a senior Shi'ite cleric in the holy city last month.
Abdel-Khaliq al-Kaabi, head of a volunteer civilian police force in Najaf, located some 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad, told reporters that Mehr al-Baghdadi and a man he identified only as Ihsan were arrested.
He said they were among a group of about ten men who fired AK-47s and threw a hand grenade in the streets around the Imam Ali shrine, where thousands of Iraqi Shi'ites made a pilgrimage on Wednesday marking the death of Islam's Prophet Mohammad.
Two civilians were injured in the skirmish near Rasool Street. Baghdadi had a bullet wound in the side but was in hospital in stable condition, he said.
"We received information about the presence of the suspects in the shrine area," Kaabi said. "They are among those wanted by the civil administration in an announcement issued when Khoei was killed," he added, referring to senior cleric Abdul Majid al-Khoei, who returned to Iraq last month from exile in London.
He said after the men were taken into the police station, seven others stormed the station from a cemetery with AK-47s to try to free them.
"We pursued them into the cemetery," he said.
Watching from a roof, a witness said he saw the exchange of fire between the station and the cemetery behind it. Cars were turned back from the main road in front of the station.
The incident before dawn was a reminder that security has not taken root in many Iraqi cities after the U.S.-led war which ousted President Saddam Hussein. Many cities have been hard pressed to cope with the looting and random shootings after the collapse of a security authority.
Najaf, with a population of about 200,000, is arguably the spiritual home of Islam's Shi'ite sect and its clerics wield influence across the country and beyond.
Its police force includes some men who served as city police under Saddam. The city's interim mayor, Abdul-Munim Abboud, was a former colonel in Saddam's regular army who is now backed by U.S. forces occupying a university compound on the edge of the city.
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