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<p>BAGHDAD &#8212; A former Ba'ath Party official has confessed to planning the massive car bombing that killed the senior Shi'ite cleric Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim and more than 80 others last month, a top Shi'ite security official said.</p> <p>Ayatollah al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), was killed in the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf on Aug. 29. The incident has threatened to further divide Iraqi Shi'ites oppressed by former President Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party, which was primarily Sunni.</p>

The assassination of a leading Shia cleric who cooperated with the U.S. military in Iraq follows a secret postwar plan by Saddam Hussein to destabilize the U.S. occupation, a former Army intelligence analyst told WorldNetDaily. A Jan. 23 memo classified Top Secret and found in Iraqi intelligence files orders Saddam's agents to carry out acts of sabotage in the event of the collapse of his regime. They include infiltrating mosques and assassinating imams – specifically in the holy city of Najaf, a key religious center for Shia Muslims oppressed by Hussein's deposed Sunni Muslim regime. Among other things, the 11-point...

NAJAF, Iraq (AP) - A senior Shiite cleric called Friday for peaceful resistance to the U.S. occupation of Iraq and warned his followers were running out of patience. In Baghdad, gunmen attacked worshippers after prayers at a Sunni mosque, wounding three people. Imam Sadreddine al-Qobanji spoke to more than 15,000 people who jammed the Imam Ali mosque, Iraq's holiest Shiite Muslim shrine. He said last week's bombing outside the mosque - which killed Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim and dozens of other people - was aimed at sowing discord in Iraq. "Once we find that this road (peaceful resistance) has come...

I met Ayatollah Muhammad Bakir al-Hakim, the Shiite cleric who was blown apart by a car bomb in Najaf last week, when I was in Kuwait last year to report on the American troops who were preparing to invade Iraq. There were more than a few American officials who were wary of the ayatollah, who headed the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and who had spent a long exile in Tehran. But the Kuwaitis had developed their own relationship with the ayatollah, who regularly visited their country during Ramadan. The Kuwaitis were convinced that Ayatollah Hakim was...

Three hurt in Baghdad mosque shooting Associated Press Friday September 5, 2003 The Guardian Gunmen sprayed a Baghdad mosque with bullets today and wounded three worshippers in the latest sign of the growing tensions between Sunni and Shia Muslims. The raid by three gunmen at a Sunni mosque, which took place at the end of dawn prayers, comes one week after a car bomb killed a senior cleric and scores of his followers at a major Shia shrine in Najaf. "They wanted to harm the unity of Islam," said Imam Walid al-Azari at the Quiba mosque in the north-east of...

Don’t Panic And don’t put sensitivity before common sense. By Andrew Apostolou The murder of Ayatollah Baqr al-Hakim is undoubtedly a setback, but it is not a defeat. Ayatollah al-Hakim, despite 23 years of backing from the Iranians, had been willing to work with the Coalition, even if he was uneasy about the U.S. and British presence in Iraq. There are likely to be more such setbacks, and the number of Coalition casualties could rise sharply. The unpleasant fact is that the path out of the pit that was Saddam Hussein's Iraq is proving to be steep and arduous, but...

<p>NAJAF, Iraq &#8212; Like a human sea, the faithful flooded the streets of this holy city yesterday to pay their last respects to Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, the Shi'ite cleric slain in the massive car-bombing at the Imam Ali Mosque, the holiest in Iraq, last week.</p>

The funeral of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim yesterday witnessed vast crowds, understandable emotion and sharp oratory. Most important of all, the march and the memorial service passed off peacefully. The angry speech delivered by the late Ayatollah’s brother, Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, will doubtless attract considerable and disproportionate attention. Mr al-Hakim sought to blame the Americans for the car bomb at Najaf on Friday on the ground that they had failed to provide sufficient security at the Shia shrine of Imam Ali. He then went on to assert that outside forces should leave the country...

<p>NAJAF, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. Marines stocked up on medical supplies and braced for trouble as hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shiite Muslims converged on Najaf to mourn the prominent cleric killed in a massive car bombing last week.</p> <p>The bombing killed at least 83 people, including Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, a longtime Iraqi dissident. U.S. troops are keeping responsibility for security in Najaf longer than originally planned because of the attack, U.S. Central Command sources said Monday.</p>

The killing of an Iraqi Shia leader could be the event that ignites the country's tensions and causes a regional conflagration, writes Brian Whitaker The worst act of violence in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein was overshadowed in Britain's broadsheet papers on Saturday by news that Tony Blair's media adviser had resigned. In the popular tabloids meanwhile, two celebrity stories vied for readers' attention: Madonna's "lesbian" kiss with Britney Spears and the publication of David Beckham's autobiography. Well, that's journalism. But a few years from now we may look back on the bombing that killed Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr...

  United States Department of DefenseNews ReleaseOn the web: http://www.dod.mil/releases/2003/nr20030829-0419.htmlMedia contact: media@defenselink.mil or +1 (703) 697-5131 Public contact: http://www.dod.mil/faq/comment.html or +1 (703) 428-0711   No. 642-03 IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 29, 2003 Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld Statement on An-Najaf Bombing I offer my condolences to the people of Iraq for this vicious attack at one of Islam's holy shrines. I particularly want to express my sympathy to the family and followers of Ayatollah Sayid Muhammed Baqir al-Hakim for their grievous loss.The perpetrators of this act want the opposite of what the Iraqi people, the Iraqi Governing Council, the...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Beating their chests and calling for revenge, more than 300,000 Muslims began a two-day, 110-mile march to the holy city of Najaf on Sunday to mourn a cherished Shiite leader who was assassinated in a car bombing that killed at least 85 people. The faithful followed a flatbed truck carrying a symbolic coffin for Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, a moderate cleric and Saddam Hussein opponent. Authorities said they could only find al-Hakim's hand, watch, wedding band and pen in the wreckage. "Our revenge will be severe on the killers," read one of the many banners carried...

Mosque slaughter was 'worse than American air raids' By Justin Huggler in Baghdad 30 August 2003 Twisted fragments of cars, rubble and human remains marked the spot where a leading Shia cleric was killed by a car bomb yesterday. A severed ear could be seen in the wreckage. The car bomb was massive. It blew a crater three feet wide in the street, leaving at least 80 people dead, more than three times the toll in last week's attack on the UN headquarters in Baghdad. Hours after the blast, there was still pandemonium in the holy city of Najaf as...

<p>BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A car bomb at the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf killed at least 17 people, including the Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, the Shiite leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, according to a Shiite spokesman.</p>

BAGHDAD (AFP) - A member of Iraq's US-appointed Governing Council called on Friday for internal security to be handed over to Iraqis following the killing of top Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim in a devastating car bombing in the holy city of Najaf. Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Pentagon -backed Iraqi National Congress (INC), blamed remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime and supporters of the al-Qaeda terror network for the attack, which came a little over a week after another deadly bombing wrecked the UN headquarters in Baghdad. "This is not an inter-Shiite affair," Chalabi told AFP, flatly rejecting the...

<p>The killing Friday of Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim in the holy city of Najaf further complicates the race for power in post-Saddam Iraq, riven by religious turmoil and wide discontent with the U.S.-led occupation.</p> <p>Al-Hakim, 64, was killed in the car bombing of Imam Ali mosque, Shiite Islam's holiest shrine in Iraq. He had returned to his native country May 10 after more than two decades in exile in neighboring Iran.</p>

ISLAMISM DISINTEGRATING and New Fatwa Killings August 25, 2003 Iranscope Sam Ghandchi The news from inside Iraq is that Ayatollah Mohammed Saeed al-Hakim uncle of SCIRI leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, whose group is represented on the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council, and who has been working hand in hand with the IRI terrorist Ayatollahs all these years, has been the subject of a terrorist attack, although he has survived three of his aids have died. SCIRI leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim is the same person who basically condoned the murder of Ayatollah Khoi a few months ago. The first time...

By Michael Georgy NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - Thousands of angry Shi'ite Muslims, many vowing revenge, thronged the streets of the Iraqi holy city of Najaf Monday for the funerals of three men killed in a bomb attack that wounded a top cleric. Ayatollah Mohammed Saeed al-Hakim, who was slightly injured in Sunday's bombing, is the uncle of the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), criticized by some Shi'ites for cooperating with the U.S.-led occupation. SCIRI said it was the target of the attack, which killed three bodyguards. Power struggles in Najaf are a key...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One of Iraq's top Shi'ite Muslim clerics was wounded and three security guards were killed in a bomb attack on Sunday in the holy city of Najaf, about 90 miles south of Baghdad. The bombing occurred in a city where power struggles could influence the political future of majority Shi'ite Iraq as U.S.-led forces battle to stamp out guerrilla-style attacks blamed on Saddam Hussein loyalists and foreign terrorists. Ayatollah Mohammed Saeed al-Hakim suffered light neck wounds in the bombing at his office near the Imam Ali mosque, tomb of Ali, a caliph and cousin of the Prophet...

<p>BAGHDAD, Iraq - A bomb exploded outside the house of one of Iraqi's most important Shiite clerics on Sunday, killing three guards and injuring 10 others. The fresh violence comes as the U.S.-led coalition quietly recruits former Iraqi spies to work with American intelligence officials in the country, according to Iraqis.</p>