August 29, 2003
Things fall apart
The attempts to assassinate Ayatollah Baqr Hakim have succeeded:
A car bomb outside the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf, Iraq, killed dozens of people including the Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, the Shiite leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Shiite officials said.Officials at the Najaf Teaching Hospital said the blast killed at least 75 people, burning many beyond recognition. The hospital was treating at least 142 wounded people, officials said.
More dead and wounded probably were taken to other hospitals, officials said.
Mohsen Hakim, at the SCIRI office in Tehran, Iran, told CNN that Hakim and his entourage had left the mosque at about 2 p.m. (6 a.m. EDT), after Friday noon prayers and were walking toward their cars when two cars beside them exploded. It wasn't clear whether the cars that exploded were the ayatollah's cars.
As the article goes on to explain:
Brookings Institution scholar Ken Pollack told CNN that if this and similar attacks are found to be the work of followers of Saddam, who was a Sunni Muslim, it could touch off a severe round of violence between the majority Shias -- who were persecuted under Saddam's regime -- and Sunnis. (On the Scene: Ken Kollack)He said it was doubtful that Shiites would blame the United States directly for the attack, but echoed Chalabi's contention that the Shiites would blame the U.S.-backed coalition "simply for not doing a better job at security."
...The SCIRI, founded in the 1980s, long supported an overthrow of Saddam's regime without Western involvement. During Saddam's rule, the group broadcast a radio signal into Iraq on a station called the Voice of Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim commanded a militia called the Badr Corps, armed by Iran, of some 4,000 to 8,000 people.
Witnesses in Baghdad said on Friday that about 300 members of the Badr Corps left Baghdad wearing military-styled uniforms and armed with guns and rocket-propelled grenades, saying they were going to Najaf.
Can a bloody civil war be avoided? How will the US handle this? Who knows?