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August 25, 2004
Return of the Grand Ayatollah
My greatest fear? That Sistani will be assassinated on Thursday in front of the Imam Ali mosque, just like Al Hakim was before him. Whether the Iranians, the Saudis, or even Al Qaeda were behind it, you know who would surely take the blame. US.
Iraq's leading Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is reported to have prepared a peace plan to try to end the violence in the city of Najaf. Iraqi police would replace foreign troops in the demilitarised city while compensation would be paid to people affected by three weeks of fighting.Ayatollah Sistani is due to arrive in Najaf, his home city, having returned to Iraq from medical treatment abroad. Thousands of Iraqis are preparing to heed his call for a march to the city.
Ayatollah Sistani called for "all believers" to march to Najaf to try to end the three-week military confrontation between US forces and fighters loyal to Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr....
Ayatollah Sistani's plan envisages weapons-free zones in both Najaf and Kufa, a Sadr stronghold, aides said.
Sadr fighters are believed to remain in control of Najaf's Imam Ali shrine complex, refusing to yield to US and Iraqi forces surrounding them.
NAJAF, Iraq, Thursday, Aug. 26 - Iraq's most powerful Shiite cleric returned to the country on Wednesday from a hospital stay in London, calling for a mass demonstration here to end three weeks of fighting, and hours later American forces made their way almost to the gate of the Shrine of Imam Ali, where Shiite insurgents had established a base.Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who commands the loyalty of millions of Shiite Muslims, came across the border in a convoy from Kuwait and planned to reach Najaf, his home, at dawn Thursday and lead a march to the shrine where American army and marines squeezing out the militia of the rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr. As the United States Army barraged the Old City in the early hours of Thursday, the Marines advanced from the west by tank and on foot, and fires burned....
The announcement by the 73-year-old grand ayatollah, at a critical moment in the battle, set the stage for a dramatic show of his authority in the ravaged city. Adherents in the nearby holy city of Karbala massed to join the march.
With Mr. Sadr's Mahdi Army militia suffering from the bombardment, the announcement by Ayatollah Sistani suggested that he was seizing an opportune moment, gambling that his return could disperse what appeared to be an increasingly confused and demoralized group of insurgents and signal to Iraq's majority Shiites that he could save the shrine from damage or destruction....
After Mr. Smeisim's arrest, a group calling itself the Brigade of Divine Fury kidnapped the brother-in-law of the Iraqi defense minister, Hazim al-Shalaan. The group demanded Mr. Smeisim's release.
It was the arrest of another Sadr aide that led to the seizure of the shrine by the Mahdi Army on Aug. 5. Ayatollah Sistani, whose house is less than 100 yards away, left Iraq for London the next day, and was reported to have undergone an angioplasty to clear a blocked artery on Aug. 13.
Posted by Mike at August 25, 2004 11:22 PM
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