Ayatollah may be victim of power struggle to command Iraq's Shias

IRAQ: Sayyed al-Hakim was a Shia cleric prepared to do business with the Americans. That may have cost him his life, writes Michael Jansen

Ayatollah Sayyed Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim was both a revered and a controversial fixture in the Shia clerical hierarchy.

Born in 1939, he was the son of Grand Ayatollah Muhsin al-Hakim, the spiritual head of Iraq's Shias from 1955 until his death in 1970.

Ayatollah Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim was raised and educated in the Shia holy city of Najaf at the seminary where he gained a reputation for scholarliness, the achievement which enables Shia clerics to rise to senior positions.

In 1980, shortly after war erupted between Iraq and Iran, Sayyed Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim fled to Tehran. In 1982 he was chosen by Ayatollah Khomeini to head the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).

While in Iran, Ayatollah al-Hakim raised an anti-Saddam militia, the Badr Corps, said to be between 5,000 to 10,000 strong. His brother, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, was appointed commander.

After the first US war against Iraq in 1991, SCIRI allied itself with the umbrella group headed by Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi National Congress (INC), which was funded by the US Central Intelligence Agency with the aim of creating an Iraqi opposition in exile capable of toppling President Saddam. But the alliance was short-lived.

Due to the hostility between Tehran and Washington, SCIRI declared its independence of the INC and the US and maintained a certain distance from them until Abdel Aziz al-Hakim joined the US-appointed interim Governing Council last July.

Although he continued to call for Iraq to be ruled by clerics, Ayatollah al-Hakim had clearly decided that SCIRI should accept Washington's democratic framework for the new Iraq. His detractors claimed that this amounted to a tactical retreat and that his goal remained a Shia theocracy.

Ayatollah al-Hakim returned to Iraq on May 10th last and was welcomed first in Basra and then Najaf by tens of thousands of fervent supporters.

However, he found he was not the only charismatic figure proposing to lead the Shia community, 60 per cent of the country's population.

On the one hand, he faced Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most senior cleric in the religious establishment, who is critical of the US occupation but also believes clerics should stay out of politics and calls for the separation of church and state. Ayatollah Sistani enjoys the support of conservative tribesmen and moderate urban Shias.

On the other hand, Ayatollah al-Hakim had to contend with Sayyed Muqtada al-Sadr, who has impeccable clerical credentials. While Sayyed al-Sadr agrees that clerics should rule, he does not accept Ayatollah Khomeini's model and calls for Iraqis to stand against the occupation.

Sayyed al-Sadr, a rabble rouser who has the backing of young, disaffected Shias and the poor, has been blamed for the murder of a pro-US Shia cleric, Shaikh Abdel Majid al-Khoi in April, and last Sunday's failed bomb attempt on the life of the uncle of the slain Ayatollah Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim.

His murder could very well ignite the inter-Shia civil conflict predicted by commentators before the war.