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Thu 10 Apr, 2003 09:54 am
Iraqi Shiite leader killed in attack at Ali mosque
CNN - Thursday, April 10, 2003 Posted: 11:03 AM EDT
NAJAF, Iraq (CNN) -- A prominent Iraqi Shiite Muslim leader was shot and stabbed to death Thursday in an attack that began inside the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf, a family friend told CNN.
Islamic cleric Majeed Said al-Khuaai was the son of the late Ayatollah Abo al Qasim, a popular Shiite leader executed under Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's rule, said Saad Sayeh Faydh, a family friend. Al-Khuaai was shot inside the mosque, the holiest site in Shiite Islam, then dragged outside and stabbed to death, he said.
Faydh was injured in the same attack.
Al-Khuaai was trying to re-establish himself in the Shiite community after living in Britain for many years, Time magazine reporter Jim Lacey told CNN. He was expected to urge Iraq's Shiite population to cooperate with the U.S.-led occupation, Lacey said.
Yes, I just saw that item in the NY Times. Now, the fun really begins...
If we think we've taken care of business in Iraq, this should be a wake-up call. I look forward to Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz brain-storming their way through this kind of situation.
Who killed him and why?
If some Saddam followers did this, there is not a real threat for the succes of the American plans.
But if this man was killed bu his own Shia people because he planned to cooperate with the US/UK. That would mean real trouble. Who will risk his life to cooperate with 'the invaders'. And what will happen with those people after the US soldiers are gone? Will they be seen as traitors?
It didn't take long. This is a long way from over.
Slain Iraqi Cleric Urged Reconciliation
Slain Iraqi Cleric Urged Reconciliation
Friday April 11, 2003 1:20 AM
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Abdel Majid al-Khoei, a Shiite Muslim cleric whose father was the Shiite world's supreme ayatollah, returned home to Iraq last week from exile to preach reconciliation as the country tries to rebuild.
A staunch opponent of Saddam Hussein, he was reaching out to a mullah reviled for his connections to Saddam's regime when a crowd killed them both Thursday in the holy city of Najaf, witnesses said.
Al-Khoei was in his early 40s and had lived for years in London.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who had met with al-Khoei several times both at Downing Street and at al-Khoei's London-based foundation, said he was appalled at al-Khoei's death and sent condolences to his family.
``He was a religious leader who embodied hope and reconciliation and who was committed to building a better future for the people of Iraq,'' Blair said in a statement.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw added that he was ``sure his vision for (Iraqi Shiites) will be realized.''
Al-Khoei's family is of Iranian origin but lived in Iraq's mainly Shiite south for many years.
Al-Khoei's father was Abul-Qassim al-Khoei, the Supreme Ayatollah or spiritual leader for the world's Shiites, who died in August 1992 while under house arrest imposed by Saddam's regime.
A year before his death, the elder al-Khoei was forced to meet Saddam and show loyalty following the regime's crushing of the Shiite uprising that followed the 1991 Gulf War. The meeting was aired on Iraqi television as a gesture to humiliate the Shiites.
When the ayatollah died, Abdel Majid al-Khoei defected to London and founded a charity whose causes included Iraqi refugees in Iran, which is also mostly Shiite. It was funded with contributions from followers in Iraq, Iran and elsewhere.
Al-Khoei began to indulge in politics in recent years with Iraqi opposition groups, annoying some exiles who felt he should stick to charitable work.
He took part in the U.S.-backed, meeting of Iraqi opposition groups in London last December that drew up plans for a post-Saddam era.
Shortly after U.S. troops took control of Najaf last week, he returned to try help calm the city and restore order. Some of his opponents accused him of wanting to get a jump on other Shiite leaders in building popularity.
Al-Khoei, while a respected figure, did not hold a high position in the Shiite clerical hierarchy, where scholarly eminence can translate into politial influence. What support he did have in Iraq came mainly from his links to his father.
Al-Khoei was working to establish a new political organization to be called the Supreme Iraqi Shiite Council that would support moderate religious ideology and reconciliation among all religious sects.
He told The Associated Press by telephone Monday that he and a group of exiled Iraqis had helped persuade locals in Najaf to cooperate with U.S. troops.
Other Shiite clerics have ruled against such cooperation, including the largest group, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq led by Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, who also decided to return to Iraq from his exile in Iran.
Others competing with al-Khoei in Najaf were the radical followers of the late Shiite leader Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr, who was killed by Saddam two years ago.
For the world's nearly 120 million Shiites, Najaf is the third holiest city, behind Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, and a center for learning.
Al-Khoei was married and had several small children. Details were not available.
I guess this sort of thing is inevitable as sects and clans and political groups (often the same, I gather, in iraq) jockey for position in the power vacuum.
This is going to be the great post-war challenge...
word is they were "hacked" to death with swords & knives... sounds gruesome
Thanks, Violet, interesting.
Murder at Iraq's holiest shrine; Shia infighting?
April 11, 2003 - London Times
Murder at Iraq's holiest shrine
By Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor
IRAQ'S holiest Islamic shrine was yesterday transformed into the site of mob rule and murder, when a prominent cleric was hacked to death by rival Shia Iraqis, only days after returning home from exile in London.
Less than 24 hours after the world watched jubilant scenes of US-led liberation of Baghdad, the victory was soured yesterday by a bloody and messy aftermath that threatened to undermine the country's future.
Looters ran amok in the capital, raiding government ministries and the homes of the ousted leadership under the noses of US troops. The residence of Tariq Aziz, the former Deputy Prime Minister, was stripped bare along with the "pleasure palace" of Saddam's playboy son Uday. Most of the capital's residents stayed at home to protect property and avoid being caught in crossfire.
US Marines, who only a day before had been embraced as liberators, yesterday had to fight for their lives. At least four were injured, and possibly killed, when a man approached a patrol near Saddam City and detonated explosives strapped to his body. Earlier at least one Marine died and more than 20 were injured as they fought fierce street battles against Saddam loyalists holding out inside the al-Imam mosque, in northern Baghdad.
Iraqi leaders were negotiating the surrender of Mosul to US troops last night after their forces began to hand in their weapons and abandoned positions in and around the key northern city. The fall of Mosul would leave the city of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's birthplace and stronghold, the only major centre of resistance left in Iraq.
Arguably the most tragic and potentially explosive incident occurred in the holy city of Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, which American forces captured a week ago. Abdul Majid al-Khoei, 42, a friend of Tony Blair's with close links to Washington, was hacked to pieces at the ornate Grand Imam Ali mosque as he attempted to defuse a stand-off between rival Shia groups.
His death was a serious blow to American and British efforts to impose order and encourage a new leadership in post-Saddam Iraq. It also raised the spectre of sectarian violence among the country's majority Shia Muslims, who for the first time in Iraq's history have the opportunity of assuming power.
Witnesses said that Mr al-Khoei was killed with knives and swords by followers of a rival group inside the gold-domed shrine after he tried to defend himself with a pistol.
The killing was condemned last night by the White House and Downing Street, who had hoped that the cleric could emerge as a key pro-Western figure in Iraq's future leadership. The Prime Minister, who met Mr al-Khoei on several occasions, said that he was "saddened and appalled" by what he called the "assassination". "He was a religious leader who embodied hope and reconciliation and who was committed to building a better future for the people of Iraq," Mr Blair said. "I would like to express my sincere condolences to the family of Abdul Majid al-Khoei and to the al-Khoei Foundation."
The killing underlined the anarchy which has spread in areas captured by US and British forces. It also threatened to trigger more infighting among Iraq's majority Shia population, traditionally the country's poorest and most militant population.
Mr al-Khoei, the son of Iraq's late Shia spiritual leader Ayatollah Sayyid Abul-Qasim al-Khoei, fled the country in 1991 when his father was involved in the failed Shia uprising against Saddam.
He lived in exile in North London working for the al-Khoei Foundation, a leading Muslim charitable organisation.
Over the past year, however, Mr al-Khoei was courted by Washington and London and was involved in preparations for postwar Iraq. After US forces captured Najaf, he returned to the city, which is the spiritual home of Shia Muslims. Iraqi opposition sources said that Mr al-Khoei was trying to end a potentially explosive stand-off inside the mosque, which is built over the tomb of Imam Ali, the Prophet's son-in-law and the founder of Shia Islam.
He was trying to negotiate safe passage for Haider al-Kadar, a hated religious official who worked for Saddam's regime. When the two men appeared together they weregreeted with abuse by followers of Mohammed Braga al-Saddar, another Shia religious leader.
"Al-Khoei tried to protect Saddam's man but they were both killed by the mob," said one opposition member in Iraq. "He was hacked to death."
Although the killing was portrayed as an accident, there were suspicions last night that his death was politically motivated. He also had rivals in the Shia community.
Shiite cleric threatens assination of rival cleric
Posted on Mon, Apr. 14, 2003
Iraqis hold three clerics under siege
By Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson
Knight Ridder News Service
TEHRAN, Iran - Armed Iraqis have surrounded the homes of a leading Shiite Muslim cleric and two other spiritual leaders in the central Iraqi city of Najaf and are threatening to kill the men today unless they cede power or leave the country, religious officials in Tehran said.
The attackers are said to be followers of a rival Iraqi cleric seeking to control the historical center of the minority Muslim sect, whose followers make up about 60 percent of Iraq's population. The same group is accused of fatally stabbing pro-Western Shiite cleric Abdul Majid al Khoei and at least three others last week in Najaf in what has been described as a bid to control the holiest Shiite shrine.
So far, the clerics have not responded to their attackers' demands.
Reached in London, al Khoei's nephew, Jawad al Khoei, said Sunday that he contacted United Nations and U.S. officials and demanded that they intervene before any more blood is shed. The Khoeis are allied with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, one of the sect's leaders. It's not clear whether Sistani is inside one of the houses under siege.
Sistani's office in Iran's holy city of Qom issued a written statement Sunday night warning that responsibility to end the siege, which began Saturday, lay with the U.S.-led coalition. "The holy city of Najaf is in the midst of chaos, a chaos that has no religious or historical justification," the statement said. "The holy shrines and the life of the Marajeh [religious authorities] are in serious danger."
In Beirut over the weekend, another top Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlullah, issued a fatwa, or religious decree, calling for Shiites to use any means to defend Sistani.
U.S. troops stationed on the outskirts of Najaf have reportedly moved into the city to restore order.
The two other clerics under siege in Najaf are a nephew of exiled Iraqi Shiite opposition leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al Hakim, who heads the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is based in Tehran, and Sheikh Ishaq Fayaz, a religious leader from Afghanistan.
The 600 or more armed Iraqis who have cornered the clerics and taken over the Grand Imam Ali Mosque, the holiest Shiite shrine, where al Khoei was killed Thursday, are thought to be part of a shadowy group called Jimaat-e-Sadr-Thani. The group is led by Moqtada al Sadr, 22, the son of Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al Sadr, a prominent cleric who was assassinated by Saddam Hussein's government in 1999.
Rival Shiite cleric are killing each other to gain power
Moqtada al Sadr is leader of a shadowy group called Jimaat-e-Sadr-Thani. Sadr, 22, is the son of Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al Sadr, a prominent cleric who was assassinated by Saddam Hussein's government in 1999.
History of the Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al Sadr family and his assination by Saddam:
http://geocities.com/Athens/Cyprus/8613/biogh.html
STRATFOR:Shiite Factions Battle for Postwar Iraq Influence
Shiite Factions Battle for Influence in Postwar Iraq
STRATFOR - April 15, 2003
Political power plays by Iraqi Shiite groups have heated up since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. The Shiite Arab majority in Iraq hopes to slip into power after the U.S. military withdrawal, but various Shiite groups first must bring their own internal contest to a close.
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