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April 23, 2003
Threats keep Hakim from delivering Karbala sermon
It's still not clear exactly where Ayatollah Hakim is today. Iran or Iraq? According to Kim Sengupta of the Independent, reporting from Karbala:
Ayatollah Hakim, who was supposed to address the pilgrims, failed to turn up. He was warned, said his followers, that he may be attacked.The US military said they had foiled a plot by "a gang of five Baathists and a member of al-Qa'ida" to blow up two mosques in Karbala. Captain Jimmie Cummings said the plan was to carry out the attack during the pilgrimage.
If this is true, it seems to me that the plan might have been to blame it on the Americans and create an international crisis. The Arab Times out of Kuwait ran a similar story on Monday:
Leading Shiite Muslim clerics in Iraq will not take part in a pilgrimage to Karbala, which reaches a climax on Wednesday, for fear of "terrorist attacks" by Saddam Hussein loyalists, a Kuwaiti Shiite cleric said Monday."We cannot hide our worries and fears of recurrent terrorist operations and clashes between these millions of crowds gathering at Karbala on Wednesday," Mohammed Baqer Musawi al-Muhri said in a statement obtained by AFP. Muhri said that due to an unstable security situation, Ayatollah Ali Sistani and the sheikhs Mohammad Said al-Hakim and Ishak Fayyad will not be participating in the march to the holy city and "will remain indoors away from people in protest at what's happening."
Saddam loyalists could "sneak" between the crowds, working to "wage civil strife" while coalition forces fail to intervene, he warned. He said that Iraqi tribes and organisers of the march to Karbala should exercise utmost caution to identify the possible pro-Saddam elements and Fedayeen, a militant volunteer corps of the fallen regime. Hundreds of thousands of Shiite Muslims were making their way Monday to the holy city of Karbala on a long-suppressed pilgrimage, venting their frustration at the US occupation and flexing their new-found political muscle.
Posted by Mike at April 23, 2003 08:25 PM
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